* THE STORY OF * 
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 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924030994648 
 
THE STORY OF THE GREAT LAKES 
 
•Tl 
 
 ^^y^- 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK - BOSTON ■ CHICAGO 
 ATLANTA ■ SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 
 
 LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
 MELBOURNE 
 
 THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 
 
 TORONTO 
 
THE STORY OF THE 
 GREAT LAKES 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD CHANNING 
 
 PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
 AND 
 
 MARION FLORENCE LANSING 
 
 EDITOR OF THE "OPEN ROAD LIBRARY" 
 
 IVITH MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 1909 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
(\. 7-^^(0 jo 
 
 Copyright, 1909, 
 By the MACMILLAN COMPANY, 
 
 Set up and electrotyped. Published March, 1909. 
 
 Norivood Press 
 
 J. S. Gushing Co. — Bertuick & Smith Co. 
 
 Norwood, Mass. J U.S.A. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 For three hundred years the Great Lakes 
 have been the centre of an immensely varied and 
 interesting history. They were originally the 
 home of savages ; they were discovered and ex- 
 plored by Frenchmen ; they became the scene 
 of a century-long struggle for possession by In- 
 dians of many tribes and white men of three 
 nations ; and they have been finally occupied 
 and developed by Americans. In every epoch 
 they present a rich field for study. 
 
 No minute and exhaustive chronicle has been 
 attempted in this volume, but important events, 
 with the customs and life of each period, have 
 been brought together and presented. Changes 
 have come with such rapidity that the conditions 
 of fifty years ago seem remote to-day. In this 
 swift progress the heritage of the past must not 
 be forgotten. The picturesqueness of the early 
 life, the courage and hardihood of the explorers 
 and settlers, and the tale of thrilling adventures 
 
vi Preface 
 
 and noble deeds should be treasured, as should 
 the achievements of the builders of cities and 
 captains and soldiers of industry of our own 
 day. 
 
 Cambridge, Massachusetts, 
 November, 1908. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PART I 
 
 Discovery and Exploration 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. The Great Lakes .... 
 
 II. Champlain on the Great Lakes, 1615-1616 
 
 III. The Jesuit Mission to the Hurons, 1626— 1650 
 
 IV. The Pageant of Saint Lusson, 1671 
 
 V. The Building of the Griffon, 1678-1679 . 
 VI. La Salle on the Great Lakes, 1679 . 
 VII. A Hapless French Governor, 1682— 1684 
 
 3 
 10 
 
 25 
 39 
 49 
 61 
 
 73 
 
 PART II 
 The Struggle for Possession 
 
 VIII. The Founding of Detroit, 1701 
 
 IX. Niagara and the Loss of Canada, 1759 
 
 X. The Conspiracy of Pontiac, 1763—1764 
 
 XI. The Adventures of a Trader, 1761-1764 
 
 XII. Wayne's Indian Campaign, 1794 . 
 
 XIII. The Great Lakes in the War of i 8 I 2 
 
 XIV. The Conquest of Lake Erie, I 8 I 3 . 
 XV. General Lewis Cass and Reorganization, 
 
 1832 
 
 XVI. The Black Hawk War, 1832 
 
 87 
 
 lOI 
 
 i'3 
 135 
 151 
 16s 
 179 
 
 191 
 
 201 
 
Vlll 
 
 Contents 
 
 PART III 
 
 Occupation and Development 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 XVII. Gateways of the Great Lakes, 1 600-1 900 
 
 XVIII. The Story of a Road, 1 600-1 900 
 
 XIX. Before and after the Turnpike, 1796-1811 
 
 XX. The Erie Canal, 1825 
 
 XXI. The Great Lakes in 1 840 . 
 
 XXII. The Coming of the Railroad to Lake Erie 
 1836-1853 .... 
 
 XXIII. Lincoln and Douglas in Chicago, 1858-1861 
 
 XXIV. The Great Lakes in the Civil War, 1864 
 XXV. Three Great Industries of the Lakes 
 
 XXVI. Shipping on the Lakes 
 XXVII. The Development of the City . 
 
 A Brief List of Books ..... 
 
 Index ....,.., 
 
 PAGE 
 
 217 
 228 
 
 242 
 
 251 
 266 
 
 283 
 299 
 317 
 330 
 356 
 
 374 
 385 
 393 
 
MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 MAPS 
 
 Huron — Erie — Ontario 
 
 From Lake Michigan to the Mississippi 
 
 Gateways of the Lakes 
 
 By Trail and Turnpike to Lake Erie . 
 
 By Canal and Railroad to Lake Erie . 
 
 PAGE 
 12 
 
 202 
 
 223 
 
 232 
 
 284 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 La Salle 
 
 . Front 
 
 ispiece 
 
 The "Soo" Canal 
 
 facing page 
 
 8 
 
 Niagara Falls as sketched by Hennepin 
 
 
 52 
 
 La Barre and Grangula 
 
 
 76 
 
 A View of Niagara Fort . 
 
 
 104 
 
 Black Hawk 
 
 
 204 
 
 Through the Locks at Lockport 
 
 
 256 
 
 Chicago in 183 I . 
 
 
 278 
 
 An Early Lake Superior Copper Mine 
 
 
 348 
 
 Iron Ore at a Lake Superior Port 
 
 
 352 
 
 The Old and the New, General Cass's Canoe 
 
 
 
 and a Modern Freight Steamer . 
 
 
 360 
 
 Grain Elevator and Lumber Jam 
 
 
 37° 
 
PART I 
 DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 THE GREAT LAKES 
 
 STANDING in Lake Park, Chicago, beside 
 the statue of General Logan, the supporter 
 of Douglas and, later, of Lincoln, one has 
 behind him the most marvellous city of modern 
 times, and before him the southwesternmost of 
 the Great Lakes. In front, glitter the waters 
 over which La Salle journeyed three centuries 
 ago. As in those days, they respond to the play 
 of wind and weather, now calm as a sheet of glass, 
 and now swept by sudden gales into turbulent 
 waves and breakers ; but the aspect of the land 
 is such that were La Salle to visit it he would not 
 recognize the spot. In place of a wilderness with 
 an occasional group of low-lying Indian wigwams 
 he would see a mighty city of buildings towering 
 one hundred and fifty feet above the street and 
 reaching down from twenty-five to fifty feet below 
 ground. In place of a few canoes with their loads 
 of furs and crews of savages, emerging from the 
 
 3 
 
/j. The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 narrow mouth of the Chicago River, seven thou- 
 sand freighters and steamers with an aggregate 
 tonnage greater than that floated in any other 
 port in the world touch annually at the wharves 
 along her splendid harbor front. These vessels 
 and thousands of trains, running on tracks whose 
 mileage is more than a third of that of the whole 
 railway system of the United States, bring to her 
 stockyards, her grain elevators, and her markets 
 the herds and flocks of the western plains, the 
 crops of the wheat-fields of the Northwest, and 
 the merchandise of Europe and of Asia. 
 
 Chicago is the greatest distributing centre of 
 this region, but the ports of Lake Erie handle 
 many important industries whose traffic never 
 enters Lake Michigan. The copper of the upper 
 Michigan peninsula, the iron ore of the Wiscon- 
 sin and Minnesota ranges, the coal of Ohio and 
 Pennsylvania, and many a minor industry have 
 had their share in building up the modern empire 
 of the Great Lakes. The body of water about 
 which this empire has risen is made up of five 
 lakes: Superior, Huron, Michigan, Erie, and 
 Ontario, which together form the greatest inland 
 waterway of the world. These lakes have an area 
 of more than half that of the Black Sea or the 
 
The Great Lakes 5 
 
 Caspian, while Lake Superior is the largest body 
 of fresh water on the globe. The four upper 
 lakes are so nearly level that one canal with a 
 single lock has given them a navigable length 
 of over fourteen hundred miles. Lake Ontario, 
 however, is effectively separated from the others 
 by Niagara Falls and its attendant rapids. Other 
 great inland bodies of water are directly connected 
 with the ocean by navigable straits. The Medi- 
 terranean Sea is entered from the Atlantic by the 
 Strait of Gibraltar, the Black Sea is connected in 
 its turn with the Mediterranean by the Darda- 
 nelles and the Bosphorus ; but Niagara closes 
 direct navigation between the Great Lakes and 
 the sea. 
 
 Canals have done much in the last hundred 
 years to alleviate the natural inaccessibility of 
 the lake system. Eighty-five years ago the Erie 
 Canal gave a water route from the eastern end of 
 Lake Erie to the Hudson River and thus to the 
 Atlantic Ocean. Five years later the Welland 
 Canal passed round Niagara Falls and connected 
 Lake Erie with Lake Ontario, and a third canal 
 soon connected Lake Erie with the Ohio River. 
 To-day a second era of canal building is upon us. 
 The Welland Canal has been widened, making it 
 
6 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 possible for boats of moderate draught to go from 
 Lake Erie to Lake Ontario and thence by nu- 
 merous small cuts around the rapids of the St. 
 Lawrence to the Atlantic. The Erie Canal is 
 being enlarged, and engineers" dream of a time 
 when it will be made sufficiently wide and deep 
 for sea-going vessels to pass from the Atlantic 
 Ocean to Lake Erie. The Hennepin Canal at 
 Chicago will open a route from Lake Michigan 
 by the Illinois and Mississippi rivers into the 
 Gulf of Mexico. Each state bordering on the 
 Great Lakes as well as every province of the 
 Dominion of Canada is to-day planning extensions 
 of this canal system. 
 
 On the lonely shores past which La Salle and 
 later explorers voyaged have been built villages, 
 towns, and cities. This region is to-day the clear- 
 ing-house of the commerce of the central plain of 
 North America. From the western terminals of 
 the lake routes railways pass over the plains and 
 mountains of the Northwest to the Pacific ; from 
 their eastern ports stretch lines to the seaboard 
 cities of the Atlantic. The farms of the North- 
 west send yearly one hundred and fifty million 
 bushels of wheat, six hundred million bushels of 
 oats, and a billion bushels of corn to Chicago and 
 
The Great Lakes 7 
 
 Buffalo and thence to the eastern states and 
 Europe. Coming from the west, the transconti- 
 nental roads pay tribute at Chicago and then 
 choose between the route north of Lake Erie via 
 Detroit, or south via Cleveland. They unite at 
 Buffalo and follow the Mohawk Valley to the 
 Hudson and then to New York or Boston; or 
 they pass the AUeghanies farther south and reach 
 the coast at Philadelphia, Baltimore, or Norfolk. 
 In any case, by land or water, from the north or 
 from the west, these products come to the Great 
 Lakes, and are carried from their ports to the fac- 
 tories and markets of the East, or to steamers 
 bound for Europe. This combination of land 
 and water transportation makes the Great Lakes 
 the keystone of American industry. 
 
 We have spoken of the four upper lakes as 
 united commercially into one great sea. Before 
 Lake Superior could be entered from the others 
 one formidable obstacle had to be overcome. 
 Between Lake Superior and Lake Huron was a 
 ledge of rocks half a mile long over which the 
 waters ran in swirling rapids, forming the Sault 
 (or Rapids of) Ste. Marie. At this point the 
 famous " Soo " Canal has been constructed with 
 a single lock which is the largest and costliest in 
 
8 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 the world, though it will soon be surpassed by 
 those at the entrance of the Panama Canal. This 
 canal was built in 1855, when the presence of iron 
 and copper deposits in Michigan, Wisconsin, 
 and Minnesota was first discovered. To-day the 
 tonnage passing yearly through it runs up into 
 figures that are almost beyond belief; but these 
 figures form the best single index of the traffic of 
 the Great Lakes. In the seven open months of 
 1907 there passed through the " Soo " one hun- 
 dred million tons of freight valued at four 
 hundred and fifty million dollars. This tonnage 
 is nine times that of the Suez Canal. The mines 
 whose discovery made necessary the cutting of 
 the " Soo " Canal supply a large part of this 
 freight. Of iron ore alone they send thirty-three 
 million tons to the foundries and furnaces of 
 Pittsburg and other centres, where the raw ma- 
 terial is manufactured into articles of iron and 
 steel which form the basis of modern civilized 
 existence. From the deposits of the upper Mich- 
 igan peninsula comes yearly one-seventh of the 
 world's supply of copper. 
 
 These figures give some idea of the importance 
 of the Great Lakes in the economic development 
 of the United States. Three hundred years have 
 
The Great Lakes 9 
 
 seen this region converted from a wilderness 
 peopled by Indian tribes to the uses of modern 
 civilization. This time might well be shortened, 
 since at the beginning of the nineteenth century 
 the Great Lakes and bordering lands were still 
 occupied by the red man and a few small villages 
 and trading stations of the whites. It is indeed 
 wonderful what changes a century has wit- 
 nessed. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 CHAMPLAIN ON THE GREAT LAKES 
 
 ON the 28th of July, 1615, Samuel de 
 Champlain paddled out of the mouth 
 of the French River into the waters 
 of Georgian Bay, an arm of Lake Huron ; or, 
 as he named it from its great expanse, the 
 " Mer Douce," or " Freshwater Sea." With 
 him was a young interpreter, Etienne Brule, who 
 had been sent by Champlain when a mere lad to 
 winter in the Huron country, and to learn from 
 the Indians their languages and customs. As a 
 member of this Huron party, in 16 10, he had 
 been the first white man to look upon the waters 
 of Lake Huron, the central of the five Great 
 Lakes. Now Champlain himself had come, 
 journeying from Montreal with a trading party 
 of Indians. Some of the Indians had slipped 
 away before the rest of the expedition was ready, 
 taking with them a missionary. Father Joseph 
 Le Caron had, therefore, made the journey a few 
 
Champlain on the Great Lakes ii 
 
 days before his leader, but at last Champlain had 
 reached the marvellous sea of Indian story, and 
 was on the point of exploring the region of the 
 Great Lakes. 
 
 He found the lands bordering the lakes occu- 
 pied by three groups of Indians : the Iroquois, 
 who were closely banded together into a league 
 known as the Five Nations ; the Hurons, who 
 were related to them, but were always at war with 
 them ; and the Algonquins, who belonged to one 
 great family, but were now divided into many 
 widely scattered and independent tribes. 
 
 The Five Nations of the Iroquois were joined 
 in a loose but effective confederacy. Originally 
 they had formed one great tribe, but internal 
 dissension had split them into five, — the Mo- 
 hawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Sene- 
 cas. Legend states that Hiawatha had counselled 
 union and had thus brought about the League 
 of the Iroquois, which was the most important 
 Indian organization north of Mexico. The con- 
 federation was governed by fifty sachems, ten 
 from each nation, who made up a grand council. 
 Unanimity was required in all decisions, but 
 when these were once arrived at the tribes were 
 obedient. The Iroquois lived in a wide strip 
 
12 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 of country extending from Lake Erie and Lake 
 Ontario eastward across central New York. 
 They called this section of country "The Long 
 House " from its resemblance in shape to one 
 of their oblong dwellings. 
 
 aUEON- ERIE-ONTARIO 
 
 The Algonqulns occupied the greater part of 
 the country from the St. Lawrence to Lake 
 Superior and the Mississippi, and included the 
 Illinois, Wisconsin, Chippewa, Ottawa, and other 
 tribes of the lake region. In the centre of the 
 Algonquin country, in a narrow district extend- 
 ing eastward from Georgian Bay toward Lake 
 Ontario, lived the Huron nation, a strong and 
 prosperous tribe. Between them and the Iro- 
 quois there was constant enmity, and for a time 
 
Champlain on the Great Lakes 13 
 
 after the coming of the whites it was by no means 
 certain which group of Indians would come out 
 victorious. It was while this contest was at its 
 height that Samuel de Champlain came to the St. 
 Lawrence and in 1608 founded Quebec. It was 
 to the Huron settlements he was journeying in 
 the summer of 161 5. 
 
 Champlain was born in southern France and 
 had already won fame as an explorer. He had 
 visited the West Indies, Mexico, and Central 
 America, and had suggested the building of a 
 ship canal at Panama. He had coasted the 
 shores of New England and had been one of the 
 first French colonists at the Bay of Fundy. 
 After the founding of Quebec he had traversed 
 the lake which now bears his name and had jour- 
 neyed far and wide in the surrounding region. 
 In these expeditions he had allied himself with 
 the Indians of the St. Lawrence and had sup- 
 ported them in their battles with the Iroquois. 
 
 In the summer of 16 15, yielding to the clamors 
 of the Hurons gathered at Montreal for their 
 yearly traffic with the French, Champlain agreed 
 to accompany them on an inroad into the Iro- 
 quois country. He departed for Quebec to 
 make needful preparations, but when he returned 
 
14 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 after a delay of a few days he found that the 
 impatient Indians had set out for their villages, 
 taking with them Father Joseph Le Caron, a 
 Recollect friar who had come out with him from 
 France that spring as a missionary to the Indians. 
 Champlain embarked immediately with ten na- 
 tives, Brule, and another Frenchman on the 
 journey to the Huron villages. He approached 
 Lake Huron by the hard northern route, travel- 
 ling up the Ottawa River, along the portage path 
 to Lake Nipissing, across which he sailed, and 
 down the French River. Indian tribes along the 
 way encouraged the voyagers, telling them that 
 the Lake of the Hurons was at hand. At length 
 they came out from between the banks of the 
 river into the waters of the lake. For more than 
 a hundred miles they coasted southward along 
 its eastern shores, working their way in and out 
 among countless islands, till they reached the 
 lower end of Georgian Bay. There they landed 
 and proceeded by a well-beaten trail into the 
 heart of the Huron country. 
 
 From the moment when he entered the first 
 Huron village Champlain recognized that this 
 was an Indian community different from any 
 that he had heretofore seen. He had come upon 
 
Champlain on the Great Lakes 15 
 
 one of the most remarkable savage settlements 
 on the continent. The people lived in perma- 
 nent villages protected by palisades of crossed 
 and intersecting trunks of trees. Not only was 
 the land naturally fertile, but in the clearings 
 between the stretches of heavy forests were cul- 
 tivated fields of maize and pumpkins, and gay 
 patches of sunflowers from the seeds of which the 
 the Indians made oil for their hair. To Cham- 
 plain coming from the roving Algonquins of the 
 St. Lawrence and the barren country along the 
 Ottawa, where the Indian population lived by 
 hunting and fishing, the social advancement of 
 this group of tribes seemed very great. 
 
 The Hurons welcomed him with eager hospi- 
 tality and took him from village to village, enter- 
 taining him with lavish feasting and celebration, 
 for he was the champion who was to lead them 
 to victory against their hated foe the Iroquois. 
 At the principal Huron village Carhagouha, a 
 settlement of two hundred bark lodges enclosed 
 in a palisade thirty-five feet high, Champlain 
 found Father Le Caron. 
 
 The priest had feared that his leader would 
 not follow the Hurons, or that if he did he 
 would be captured by the Iroquois. When he 
 
1 6 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 looked up one morning and saw Champlain 
 standing in the doorway of his dwelUng his joy 
 knew no bounds. He showed him the bark 
 wigwam which the Indians, to prove the joy 
 that they felt at his coming, were building for 
 him. They had offered at first to lodge him in 
 one of their common cabins, but Father Le 
 Caron had remonstrated with them, representing 
 that " to negotiate with God affairs so important, 
 involving the salvation of their whole nation," 
 he needed a place where he could be alone, far 
 from the tumult of their families. So they had 
 brought poles and bark and erected this lodge 
 at the edge of the forest. Here he had raised 
 an altar, and here on the I2th of August was 
 celebrated the first mass ever held in the country 
 of the Hurons. Curious Indians crowded about 
 as the priest stood before his rude altar and led 
 the devotions of the kneeling band of Frenchmen 
 with Champlain at their head. For the first time 
 the solemn chant of the " Te Deum Laudamus " 
 rang out on the listening air, and a volley of 
 muskets proclaimed the planting of a cross out- 
 side the priest's lodge. The symbol of Christian- 
 ity had been raised in the country of the heathen ! 
 Before they set out on the war-path the Huron 
 
Champlain on the Great Lakes 17 
 
 chiefs insisted on a weary succession of feastings 
 and dancings, rejoicing in their serene conviction 
 of victory to come. Champlain spent the time 
 going from village to village, gratifying his insati- 
 able curiosity over everything which he saw. At 
 last the savage war-party was ready to set out. 
 They crossed Lake Simcoe and paddled, making 
 the necessary portages, down the chain of inter- 
 vening lakes to the river Trent, which flowed 
 into Lake Ontario. The country through which 
 the long line of canoes passed was singularly 
 beautiful. Champlain found it hard to believe 
 that the groves of walnut trees, whose branches 
 were twined with hanging grapevines, had not 
 been set out by the hand of man to form a beau- 
 tiful artistic picture. The party stopped once 
 and encamped for a grand deer-hunt, and then 
 proceeded on its way, well-stocked with provi- 
 sions for the first days in the enemies' country. 
 Out upon Lake Ontario the frail canoes ventured, 
 and crossed it in safety, landing on the eastern 
 side of the lake, thirty miles or so from Oswego. 
 Now a change came over the warriors. Si- 
 lently they hid their canoes in the woods, and 
 with stealthy and rapid steps they filed in silence 
 through the borders of this hostile country. For 
 
1 8 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 four days they marched inland through the for- 
 est, crossing the Oneida River at the western end 
 of the lake, and on the 9th of October some of 
 their scouts brought in a captured fishing party 
 of eleven Iroquois, men, women, and children. 
 A Huron chief took possession of the prisoners 
 and began to torture them, cutting off a finger 
 of one of the women. Champlain met this 
 method of celebration with angry protest, declar- 
 ing that it was not the act of a warrior to treat 
 helpless women with cruelty. The chief agreed, 
 since it was displeasing to Champlain, to do 
 nothing more to the women, but added that he 
 would do to the men what he pleased. It was 
 a curious position in which Champlain had placed 
 himself, aiding one group of savages against 
 another, nor did he find it to his liking. 
 
 The next day the war-party came out into a 
 clearing in the forest, from which they could see 
 the Iroquois fort. A number of Iroquois were 
 gathering corn and pumpkins in the adjoining 
 fields. With a rush the impetuous young Hurons 
 who were in advance screamed their war-cry and 
 fell upon them. The Iroquois seized their arms 
 and defended themselves with such success that 
 their assailants began to fall back. Only the 
 
Champlain on the Great Lakes 19 
 
 timely aid of Champlain and the Frenchmen with 
 their terrifying muskets saved the invaders from 
 defeat. 
 
 Champlain saw that this irregular way of fight- 
 ing, each person according to his whim, would 
 result in utter ruin. The Hurons withdrew into 
 the forest to encamp for the night, and there 
 he addressed them angrily, showing them their 
 foolishness and instructing them in the best 
 methods of war. He found the Iroquois village 
 to be far more strongly defended than any that 
 he had seen among the Indians. Four rows of 
 palisades, made of trees thirty feet high, sup- 
 ported a kind of gallery, which was provided 
 with wooden gutters for quenching fire and piled 
 high with a goodly supply of stones to hurl at the 
 enemy. This was a stronghold that could not 
 be captured by the haphazard methods of the 
 Hurons. Champlain set the Indians to work the 
 next morning building a wooden tower, high 
 enough to overlook the palisades and large 
 enough to shelter four or five marksmen. In 
 four hours the work was done, and two hundred 
 of the strongest warriors dragged it forward to a 
 position from which the musketeers could pour a 
 deadly fire into the crowded galleries. The rank 
 
20 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 and file of the Hurons were meanwhile equipped 
 with huge wooden shields to protect themselves 
 against the arrows and stones of the enemy. As 
 the deadly bullets fell among them the Iroquois 
 rushed headlong from the gallery, and the result 
 of the battle would have been very different had 
 the Hurons followed out Champlain's well-con- 
 ceived plans ; but they were ungovernable. With 
 reckless fury they threw away their shields, and 
 yelling their war-cry so shrilly that no command 
 could be heard, they poured out into the open 
 field, discharging their own arrows but exposing 
 themselves meanwhile to a rain of stones and 
 arrows from the Iroquois. One Huron, bolder 
 than the rest, ran forward with firebrands to burn 
 the palisade, and others followed him with the 
 dry wood which they had gathered for the 
 purpose. But they set the fire on the leeward 
 side of the fort, where the wind was against it, 
 and torrents of water poured down from above 
 soon put it out. In vain Champlain shouted 
 commands and made every effort to restore 
 order. He soon decided that his shouting would 
 only " burst his own head " and have no effect 
 on any one else. So he and his Frenchmen set 
 to work picking the Iroquois off the rampart 
 
Champlain on the Great Lakes 21 
 
 with their shots. After three hours of this kind 
 of fighting the Hurons fell back. 
 
 Only eighteen men had been wounded, but 
 among them were two chiefs and Champlain 
 himself. He had received one arrow in the knee 
 and another in the leg. He urged the Indians 
 to renew the attack, but they refused. From 
 extreme overconfidence the warriors had passed 
 to the deepest discouragement. The next day 
 a violent wind offered them an opportunity to 
 set fire to the fort, but the Hurons sat silent in 
 their camp. For five days they waited to see 
 if the five hundred allies which Brule and twelve 
 Hurons had started a month ago to fetch would 
 appear. During this time they ventured out 
 occasionally for imprudent skirmishes, each time 
 running back under the cover of the French 
 musket fire, amid taunts from the Iroquois on 
 the palisade that the Hurons had very little 
 courage to require French assistance. Then 
 they hastily began to retreat, carrying their 
 wounded in the centre, while the Iroquois har- 
 assed the flanks and rear of the company. The 
 wounded, Champlain among them, were packed 
 in rude baskets made on the spot, and bound 
 on the backs of stout warriors. Champlain gives 
 
22 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 a vivid picture of the suffering he endured, while 
 he was thus "bundled in a heap, and doubled 
 and strapped together in such a fashion that it 
 was as impossible to move as for an infant in 
 swaddling-clothes." The torment from the 
 cramped position and constant jolting was so 
 much worse than even the pain of his wound 
 that as soon as he could possibly bear his weight 
 on his leg he got out of " this prison." 
 
 Snow and hail overtook the party on their 
 dismal march to the lake. They were relieved 
 to find their hidden canoes safe, and embarked 
 once more on Lake Ontario. In his vain efforts 
 to get the Indians to renew the attack after their 
 first defeat, Champlain had come to see that he 
 had lost some of his peculiar influence over them. 
 They had fancied that his presence would ensure 
 victory. Now they saw him wounded, and by 
 Indian weapons. Their superstitious reverence 
 for the "man with the iron breast" was weakened. 
 Here on the shores of Lake Ontario he was to 
 experience a very practical consequence of his 
 loss of prestige. The Hurons had promised him 
 an escort to Quebec ; but each warrior found a 
 reason why he should not be able to lend his 
 canoe for the journey. The chiefs who had made 
 
Champlain on the Great Lakes 23 
 
 the promises had little control over their men, 
 and Champlain found that he must winter with 
 the natives. The great war-party broke up. 
 Some went to hunt deer and bears, others to 
 trap beavers, others to fish in the frozen lakes 
 and streams, and still others returned to their 
 villages. One of the chiefs offered Champlain 
 the shelter of his cabin, which he was glad to 
 accept, and he settled down to get what com- 
 fort and information he could from his forced 
 visit. 
 
 Fifty pages of Champlain's minute and won- 
 derfully illustrated account testify to the fact that 
 he was not idle during the winter months. He 
 records many interesting customs of his Indian 
 hosts. He watched their deer- hunts, visited their 
 villages and those of neighboring tribes, was 
 umpire in their disputes, and at last turned his 
 face homeward in the early spring. With him 
 went Darontal, his Huron host. At Quebec 
 Champlain was welcomed as one risen from the 
 dead, for the Indians had long since brought in 
 word that he had been killed. A solemn service 
 was held, and all united in rendering thanks to 
 God for protecting the travellers in their many 
 perils and dangers. Upon this service and the 
 
24 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 various acts of welcome Darontal gazed in be- 
 wildered astonishment. Champlain showed him 
 all the marvellous details of civilization. With 
 the usual Indian stolidity he observed everything 
 carefully and calmly ; but at last his wonder 
 broke down his reserve. Before he departed he 
 told Champlain that he should never die con- 
 tented until he had told his friends of the French 
 way of living and seen them adopt it. With 
 valuable presents and a warm invitation to come 
 again with some of his friends, Darontal paddled 
 back to his lodge in the woods with a story that 
 must have taken months in the telling. 
 
 This was Champlain's last long trip of explora- 
 tion. For the remaining years of his life the 
 needs of the colony at Quebec held him fast. 
 His writings, sold in the book-stalls of France, 
 inspired others to cross the seas and to continue 
 the exploration and settlement of the wilderness. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE JESUIT MISSION TO THE HURONS 
 
 FROM 1615, when Father Joseph Le Caron 
 celebrated the first mass among the Hu- 
 rons, for fourteen years a few intrepid 
 priests braved the difficulties of savage life, and 
 endeavored at various times to set up missions in 
 the populous Huron villages south of Georgian 
 Bay. They suffered almost incredible hardships, 
 and in 1629 Jean Brebeuf was the only one who 
 was left in the region. He was recalled to 
 Quebec, but five years later, a year before Cham- 
 plain's death, he set out with two Jesuit compan- 
 ions to found, in the villages where Champlain 
 had wintered eighteen years before, the greatest 
 Jesuit mission in the history of New France. 
 
 No man in the annals of Church history has 
 shown greater personal heroism than Father Jean 
 Brebeuf. He was tall and strong, well fitted to 
 withstand the hardships of his chosen calling and 
 to impress the Indians with his power. The 
 
 25 
 
26 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 square cap and surplice which he donned when 
 he assembled them for instruction, in order, as 
 he naively writes, to " give more majesty " to his 
 appearance, were never less needed. With natu- 
 ral dignity he combined the power of a life con- 
 secrated with the utmost fervor to God and his 
 Church. Never during long years of service did 
 he waver in his devotion nor shrink from any- 
 thing that lay before him in his work. From 
 his reports sent home to his superiors it is evi- 
 dent that he made a deep impression on the 
 Indians. In these detailed accounts of his ex- 
 periences and of the savages among whom he 
 worked we get a clear idea of the man. We see 
 him on the long canoe journeys, sharing in the 
 labor of paddling and portages, till even he, who 
 already knew, as he says, " a little what it is to 
 be fatigued," was so weary that his body could 
 do no more. But he tells us how at these very 
 times his soul experienced a deep peace such as 
 it had never known before. In the most matter- 
 of-fact way he accepts and records the continual 
 hardships, never complaining of his lot, but writ- 
 ing with rare modesty because his whole atten- 
 tion is centred on the work instead of on himself 
 From his vivid pictures we learn, however, the 
 
The Jesuit Mission to the Hurons 27 
 
 truth of one of his casual statements. " Truly," 
 he says, " to come here much strength and pa- 
 tience are needed ; and he who thinks of coming 
 here for any other than God will have made a 
 sad mistake." 
 
 In 1634 Father Brebeuf and his companions 
 started on the northern journey by the Ottawa 
 River and Lake Nipissing to the Huron country. 
 They accompanied a party of Hurons who were, 
 returning from their annual summer trading visit 
 to Quebec. This nine-hundred-mile trip took 
 thirty days. Brebeuf kept count and found that 
 they carried their canoes thirty-five times on 
 portages one, two, and even three leagues long, 
 covering the distance three and four times to 
 transport even their small amount of baggage, 
 and that they dragged the canoes through rapids 
 at least fifty times, plunging into the icy water 
 and cutting their feet on the rocky bottom. At 
 night they slept on the bare earth or on hard 
 rocks, stung by clouds of mosquitoes. Their 
 only food was a small portion of Indian corn 
 coarsely broken between two stones, which, 
 though better than fasting, was regarded by the 
 Jesuits as " no great treat." Yet, denying them- 
 selves the ordinary necessaries of life, these priests 
 
28 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 transported the precious vessels for the mass over 
 all this weary way. 
 
 The other Jesuits suffered even more than 
 Brebeuf. Their goods were stolen ; they were 
 separated from the rest of the Huron party, 
 and deserted midway in the journey. It was 
 weeks before the worn-out travellers rejoined 
 their superior in the Huron village. After a few 
 experiences like this in reaching the mission these 
 wise priests composed a set of instructions to the 
 brethren who should follow them on this Ottawa 
 route. This code of behavior is highly charac- 
 teristic of the methods of the French Jesuits. 
 In every detail, — from not keeping the Indians 
 waiting when they were ready to embark and not 
 asking too many questions, to being careful that 
 in the canoe the brim of the priest's hat did not 
 annoy those who sat nearest him, — these Jesuit 
 fathers aimed " not to be troublesome, even to a 
 single Indian," and to " love them like brothers 
 with whom you are to spend the rest of your 
 life." In this spirit lay the success of all French 
 effort among these savage peoples. 
 
 At length Brebeuf landed on the southern 
 shores of Georgian Bay, only to be deserted at 
 the last moment by his Huron guides and left 
 
The Jesuit Mission to the Hurons 29 
 
 standing in the midst of his baggage on the lonely 
 shore. He knew the place well, for he had lived 
 three years in a neighboring village. This settle- 
 ment had, however, been destroyed and its in- 
 habitants had built their huts on another spot 
 several miles away. Brebeuf hid his goods in 
 the woods and set out alone by one of the gloomy 
 forest paths, which brought him, to his great 
 rehef, to the new village. At sight of him some 
 one cried out, " Why, there is Echom come 
 again," and at once every one ran out to salute 
 and welcome him, calling, " What, Echom, my 
 nephew, my brother, my cousin, hast thou then 
 come again ? " His goods were fetched from the 
 shore, and Brebeuf was established in the house 
 of a leading chief. As soon as his brother priests 
 had arrived the Indians set about building a house 
 for the Jesuits. Bad crops and famine had 
 afflicted the people of late, and they rejoiced 
 doubly at the coming of Brebeuf, feeling sure 
 that now the crops would no longer fail. They 
 wished, therefore, to provide for his staying in 
 their village instead of that of their neighbors. 
 
 The house which the missionaries had built 
 for them was a constant wonder to the Indians. 
 It was thirty-six feet long and twenty wide, and 
 
30 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 looked from the outside like any Huron bark 
 house. But within, the " black-robes " had made 
 innovations which were the marvel of all their 
 visitors. They divided the house into three 
 apartments, separated by wooden doors such as 
 the natives had never seen. The first room 
 served as antechamber and storm door to keep 
 out the cold. The second was that in which 
 they lived. It was at once kitchen, carpenter 
 shop, place for grinding wheat, dining room, par- 
 lor, and bedroom. Beneath high wooden plat- 
 forms, on which they placed their chests of 
 goods, the missionaries slept on sheets of bark 
 or beds of boughs covered with rush mats, with 
 skins and their clothing for covering. The third 
 part was their little chapel where they set up their 
 altar, pictures, and sacred vessels, and celebrated 
 mass every day. 
 
 The house itself attracted scores of visitors, 
 but when the clock and the mill were set going 
 the astonishment of the Indians knew no bounds. 
 No guest came who did not beg to be allowed to 
 turn the mill, and as for the clock, they sat in 
 expectant silence by the hour, waiting for it to 
 strike. They all thought it some living thing, 
 and when it began to strike they would look 
 
The Jesuit Mission to the Hurons 31 
 
 about to make sure that all the "black-robes" 
 were there and that no one was hidden to shake 
 it. They named it " Captain of the Day," and 
 inquired for it as they would for a person, wish- 
 ing to know what its food was and how many 
 times it had spoken that day. The first time 
 they heard it they asked what it said, and the 
 clever Jesuits told them two things. "When he 
 strikes twelve times, he says, ' Come, put on the 
 kettle.'" This speech they remembered particu- 
 larly well, for their own scanty meals were usu- 
 ally in the morning and evening, and they were 
 very glad during the day to take a share of the 
 Fathers' repast. " But when he strikes four times, 
 he says, ' Go out, go away, that we may close the 
 door,'" the Jesuits told their guests, and imme- 
 diately they rose and went out, leaving the weary 
 Fathers free from the constant noise and chatter. 
 The missionaries gathered the Indians for in- 
 struction on every possible occasion, teaching the 
 children their prayers in Huron rhymes and 
 preaching and explaining the faith to their elders. 
 The converts, save those baptized on the point 
 of death or in some fear of deadly peril, were few, 
 but the worthy Fathers persisted and won the 
 gratitude of the people by their help in time of 
 
32 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 famine and their kindly ministrations to the sick. 
 Other Jesuits joined them and founded additional 
 missions in neighboring villages. The Indians 
 never understood these mysterious white men, but 
 regarded them with superstition, holding them 
 answerable for bad weather, famine, and the like, 
 and on the other hand honoring them when all 
 was prosperous. The medicine men and sorcer- 
 ers were constantly against them, and in 1637 
 Father Isaac Jogues, one of the leading Jesuits, 
 heard the rumor that the white men were reported 
 to have bewitched the nation and must therefore 
 be cut off. The assembly of Huron chiefs met, 
 and the Jesuit fathers addressed them as usual on 
 their unfailing topic, the joys of heaven and the 
 fires of hell, the latter being always the only part 
 of the instruction that seemed to make any im- 
 pression on the stolid audience. For the time 
 being the Fathers escaped ; but they were still in 
 great peril. Brebeuf wrote a letter of farewell to 
 his superior at Quebec, and no Jesuit left the 
 house without the expectation of having a toma- 
 hawk crash into his head before he returned. 
 The unflinching courage of the Fathers won the 
 Indian respect. The Jesuits even went so far as 
 to give, according to the usual Indian custom for 
 
The Jesuit Mission to the Hurons ;^^ 
 
 one on the point of death, a farewell feast to all 
 the savages, an act which was regarded as a dec- 
 laration that they knew their peril and faced it 
 boldly. From that time forth their supporters 
 rose in defence of them. For the moment the 
 danger was averted and the Jesuits walked abroad 
 once more. From now on, however, their per- 
 secution as sorcerers continued at intervals in 
 different places, rising now and then to a storm 
 of superstitious frenzy. 
 
 During the next five years the Jesuits extended 
 their missions among the Hurons till almost 
 every town had resident priests. They established 
 on the shores of the river Wye a central station, 
 which by 1648 had grown into a prosperous com- 
 munity with buildings which would accommodate 
 sixty persons. Pioneers went out to neighboring 
 nations. Brebeuf and a companion journeyed to 
 the Neutral Nation which lived north of Lake 
 Erie and west and south of Lake Ontario, but 
 were met with strong opposition stirred up by the 
 superstitious Hurons, who conceived that it would 
 be an easy and safe method of getting rid of the 
 priests to have their neighbors kill them. The 
 two escaped after great hardship and danger. 
 Isaac Jogues and Charles Garnier went with at- 
 
34 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 tendants to the Tobacco Nation, which lived two 
 days' journey distant to the southwest, but were 
 as rudely repulsed. Jogues was a young man of 
 indomitable will to whom hard tasks seem always 
 to have been assigned because of his complete 
 self-surrender and consequent power. To him 
 fell, nevertheless, in the autumn of 1641 the 
 pleasant duty of visiting a tribe in the far west 
 who had invited the priests to come to them. At 
 Lake Nipissing in September the Jesuits met 
 certain savages called Ojibways, who urged the 
 "black-gowns" to visit them in their homes, and 
 gave directions for the journey. In accordance 
 with this invitation Jogues and Raymbault, with 
 a small Huron escort, set sail on Lake Huron 
 and after a voyage of seventeen days reached the 
 rapids where dwelt their friends at the location of 
 the modern Sault Ste. Marie. Here they found 
 about two thousand savages who welcomed them 
 cordially and looked and listened with awe as the 
 priests celebrated mass and explained their doc- 
 trines. They invited the Fathers to take up 
 their abode with them, saying that they would 
 "embrace them like brothers and profit by their 
 words," but the Jesuits could not be spared from 
 their other work. Jogues Hstened with interest 
 
The Jesuit Mission to the Hurons ;^^ 
 
 to tales of a great lake beyond the Sault, which it 
 took nine days to cross, and of a great river be- 
 yond, where dwelt mighty nations, "who," the 
 Fathers reported to Paris, "have never known 
 Europeans or heard of God." They could not 
 stay, but sailed away, naming the place of their 
 sojourn Ste. Marie after the mission from which 
 they came. They were not the first white men 
 to visit this strait. Nicolet, a voyager and trader, 
 had travelled with Brebeuf in 1634 as far as the 
 Huron mission and had then pushed on alone to 
 the foot of these rapids and thence along the 
 shores of Lake Michigan, greeted everywhere by 
 crowds of wondering savages. It was left, how- 
 ever, to these pioneer missionaries to give to this 
 important waterway the name which it still bears. 
 Jogues returned to the Huron mission and 
 wintered there, starting in the spring of 1642 for 
 Quebec with the Huron traders to bring supplies 
 to the mission, which was in a state of destitution. 
 As he was returning up the St. Lawrence River 
 he and his companion, Goupil, were captured by 
 the Iroquois, who led them to the Mohawk towns. 
 There most of the Hurons of the party were 
 killed, and Jogues and his white companion were 
 tortured and terribly mutilated. Goupil lost his 
 
36 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 life in the Iroquois camp, but Jogues was finally 
 rescued by Dutch allies of the Mohawks and sent 
 to Europe. From there he returned to New 
 France and was tortured and killed by the Iro- 
 quois in 1646. 
 
 Isaac Jogues was the first Jesuit to fall in the 
 progress of that warfare which was to bring to a 
 tragic end the Jesuit mission to the Hurons by 
 wiping out the towns in which the missionaries 
 labored. The journey from Quebec to the 
 Huron country was now fraught with peril from 
 the marauding bands of Iroquois warriors. Two 
 years after the first capture of Jogues an expedi- 
 tion led by Brebeuf relieved the needs of the 
 missionaries by bringing supplies. That same 
 year another Jesuit on his way to the mission 
 was taken by the Iroquois, but in 1645 ^ tempo- 
 rary peace rekindled the hopes of the Fathers. 
 Three years later the warfare broke out with 
 renewed fury, and it soon became evident that 
 the Huron nation was doomed. Large bands of 
 Hurons, deserting their towns, fled into the 
 interior. The Jesuits aided those who remained 
 to defend their homes, but town after town was 
 taken and one after another Jesuit fell into the 
 hands of the Iroquois and suffered martyrdom 
 
The Jesuit Mission to the Hurons 37 
 
 with cruel tortures. The story of the tragic 
 death of Jean Brebeuf, the founder of the mission, 
 is one of wonderful strength and endurance amid 
 most revolting tortures. The few remaining 
 Jesuits withdrew with the terrified Indian surviv- 
 ors to an island in Lake Huron, which they were 
 able for a time to defend, but the Iroquois lay in 
 an ambuscade and captured the fugitives when- 
 ever they went ashore. At the earnest entreaty 
 of the chiefs of the doomed nation the Jesuits 
 gathered the remnant of their people and aban- 
 doned with them the desolated country which 
 had been for thirty-five years the seat of mission- 
 ary labors. Sadly they proceeded on the long 
 journey to Quebec, passing everywhere deserted 
 villages which had been partially destroyed by 
 fire. Once they were attacked by the Iroquois, 
 but at length reached Quebec in Safety. The 
 Iroquois had driven the Hurons from their homes 
 to perish by famine and pestilence until the whole 
 nation was practically wiped out, and the most 
 important field of Jesuit missions was turned into 
 a solitude and a desolation. The future for 
 French missions looked dark indeed, and for a 
 time western exploration was also abandoned. 
 Within four years hope of better success in 
 
3 8 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 converting the heathen appeared in an unexpected 
 spot. The crafty Iroquois, attacked by their 
 southern neighbors, sent overtures of peace to 
 Quebec and invited to their villages the once 
 hated Jesuit priests. Father Le Moyne was the 
 first to respond, and others followed, eager to 
 convert this savage people. The first mission 
 was brought to a speedy end by the uprising of 
 the Iroquois against the remaining Hurons and 
 their former white allies in 1658, but by 1665 
 the government of New France was strong enough 
 to mete out deserved punishment to the maraud- 
 ing parties of Iroquois warriors, and by 1668 
 a mission was established in each of the Five 
 Nations. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE PAGEANT OF SAINT LUSSON 
 
 WITH the destruction of the Huron mis- 
 sions western exploration ceased for a 
 few years. In 1660 Father Menard 
 passed through the Sault Ste. Marie and spent a 
 winter ministering to the Indians on the southern 
 shore of Lake Superior. In the following 
 summer he set out on an inland journey from the 
 lake and was never heard from again. In the 
 same year, however, two fur-traders, Radisson 
 and Groseilliers, coasted along the shore of Lake 
 Superior and Lake Michigan and were followed 
 by many Jesuit missionaries whose names have 
 become famous. Two principal mission stations 
 were established, one at Sault Ste. Marie, the 
 other at La Pointe at the western end of Lake 
 Superior. At these places missionaries and 
 traders heard many tales of a great river to the 
 south and of rich copper deposits in the lake 
 region, which in turn led to more exploring expe- 
 ditions. 
 
 39 
 
40 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 At Sauk Ste. Marie, in 1671, there was a pic- 
 turesque ceremony when Daumont de Saint Lus- 
 son, agent of Louis XIV, took possession of the 
 interior of North America in the name of his 
 king. For months the French and the Indians 
 had been preparing for this pageant. Messages 
 had been sent to all the Indian tribes living within 
 one hundred leagues of Ste. Marie, urging them 
 to attend, and Nicholas Perrot, a Canadian voyager 
 and interpreter, had visited many of the tribes in 
 person to make sure of their coming. With a 
 large Indian following, he paddled up the Strait 
 of Mackinac from Lake Michigan and landed at 
 the foot of the rapids. Saint Lusson was already 
 there with fifteen men. The French leaders were 
 housed at the mission station, while the savages 
 made themselves comfortable in temporary lodges 
 erected along the stretch of shore and in the 
 fields. Gradually tribe after tribe from the north 
 and the west arrived, and on the 14th of June, 
 when fourteen tribes or their representatives had 
 come. Saint Lusson announced that the ceremony 
 would take place. 
 
 The Frenchmen, led by Saint Lusson, as- 
 sembled in the village, and crowds of curious 
 Indians gathered about the small group of white 
 
The Pageant of Saint Lusson 41 
 
 men. The French soldiers had brought out their 
 gayest uniforms and had polished their swords 
 and muskets till they shone in the sunlight. 
 Coureurs de bois — runners of the woods — 
 and other Indian traders stood about in 
 their rough picturesque costumes. At the head 
 of the line walked four Jesuits arrayed in the 
 impressive vestments of the priesthood. The 
 names of these four men stand to-day as they 
 signed them at the foot of the instrument which 
 records this act of taking possession. They were 
 a group of priests noteworthy in the history of 
 the lakes. At one end stood Father Claude 
 Dablon, the Superior of the Missions of the 
 Lakes ; next him came Gabriel Druilletes, a vet- 
 eran missionary, whose experience with the Indians 
 exceeded probably that of any Frenchman in 
 Canada, and who had been sent by the govern- 
 ment years before on a mission to the English colo- 
 nists on the Atlantic to invite their cooperation 
 against the Iroquois. Father Claude Allouez had 
 followed Father Menard in the Lake Superior 
 country and founded the La Pointe Mission, and 
 Father Louis Andre was establishing a station 
 among the Ottawas at Manitoulin Island. 
 Father Allouez had been obliged to leave the 
 
42 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 young Jesuit missionary Marquette in charge at 
 La Pointe. Had he been with his brother 
 priests, the circle of famous names would have 
 been complete. 
 
 Led by these four men, the line of Frenchmen 
 — a motley company of soldiers, priests, explorers, 
 and traders — -marched up the hill to a height 
 which had been selected because it overlooked 
 the surrounding country. On either side of the 
 column and behind it hovered the vast throng 
 of dusky Indians. As the Frenchmen halted and 
 grouped themselves about a huge cross of wood 
 that lay on the ground, the Indians fell into posi- 
 tion behind them and stood silent, waiting to see 
 what the "white faces" would do. When all 
 was quiet. Father Dablon, as Superior of the Lake 
 Missions, stepped forward and blessed the cross 
 with all the ceremonies of the Church. At a 
 sign from Saint Lusson the holy wood was lifted, 
 and as the foot of the standard fell into the 
 opening prepared for it, the Frenchmen sang 
 with all their hearts the ancient hymn of their 
 church : — 
 
 " The royal banners forward go. 
 The Cross shines forth in mystic glow: 
 * * * * 
 
The Pageant of Saint Lusson 43 
 
 Fulfilled is all that David told. 
 
 In true prophetic song of old; 
 
 How God the heathen's King should be. 
 
 For God is reigning from the tree." 
 
 As they looked from the mighty cross to the 
 horde of assembled savages the Frenchmen felt 
 that to-day as never before these words were ful- 
 filled. The uncomprehending Indians, who 
 gazed at the pageant with wondering delight in 
 its pomp, little knew how the minds of these 
 white men were filled with the vision of a time, 
 of which this was the forerunner, when these red- 
 skinned savages should be followers of the 
 heavenly King of the French and the obedient 
 retainers of their earthly monarch. 
 
 Beside the cross was erected a cedar pole to 
 which was nailed a metal plate engraved with the 
 royal arms of France. As this was being raised 
 the Frenchmen chanted the twentieth Psalm, "In 
 the name of our God we will set up our banners," 
 and one of the Jesuits, even " in that far-away 
 corner of the earth," as the record says, offered a 
 prayer for the French king in whose name all this 
 was being done. Thus side by side the stand- 
 ards of the two monarchs were raised in the wil- 
 derness, and Saint Lusson, stepping forward amid 
 
44 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 an expectant hush, with a sword in one hand and 
 a sod of earth in the other, took formal possession 
 of the soil with these words : — 
 
 " In the name of the most high and redoubt- 
 able sovereign, Louis the Fourteenth, Christian 
 King of France and Navarre, I now take posses- 
 sion of all these lakes, straits, rivers, islands, and 
 regions lying adjacent thereto, whether as yet 
 visited by my subjects or unvisited, in all their 
 length and breadth, stretching to the sea at the 
 north and at the west, or on the opposite side ex- 
 tending to the South Sea. And I declare to all 
 the people inhabiting this wide country that they 
 now become vassals of His Majesty, and bound to 
 obey his laws and follow his customs. He will 
 protect them against all enemies. In his name I 
 declare to all other princes and sovereigns and 
 potentates of whatever rank, — and I warn their 
 subjects, — that they are denied forever seizing 
 upon or settling within the Hmits set by these 
 seas ; except it be the pleasure of His Most 
 Christian Majesty, and of him who shall govern 
 in his behalf; and this on pain of incurring his 
 resentment and the efforts of his arms. Long 
 live the King ! " 
 
 As the last words fell from his lips the French- 
 
The Pageant of Saint Lusson 45 
 
 men responded with a loud shout, " Vive le Roi ! 
 Long Hve the King ! " ; guns were fired, and the 
 Indians shouted and yelped with delight. " The 
 astonishment and delight of those people," says 
 the chronicler, knew no bounds, " for they had 
 never seen anything of the kind." If words and 
 the planting of symbols could do it, the king of 
 France had taken possession of the continent of 
 North America, extending his dominion to the 
 shores of seas of which he had no knowledge. 
 But the dream of the French was not fulfilled. 
 To-day a rival people, which then occupied only 
 a small strip of the Atlantic seaboard, has swept 
 away almost every trace of the empire thus pro- 
 claimed. 
 
 In order to impress upon the Indians more 
 clearly the meaning of this august ceremony. 
 Father Claude AUouez had been appointed to set 
 forth the glory of the monarch to whom they 
 were that day submitting themselves. He had 
 spent many hours listening to flowery Indian 
 harangues, and was famihar with the style of 
 speech which suited their comprehension and met 
 with their approval. What the Indians gathered 
 from his curious address we do not know. After 
 reading the part of it which has been preserved 
 
46 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 we cannot wonder that, as the record tells, "they 
 had no words with which to express their 
 thoughts." 
 
 As soon as the wild uproar of shouts and mus- 
 ketry was hushed Father Allouez stepped forward 
 on a slight eminence and began his speech. With 
 a few words he dismissed the usual subject of his 
 priestly discourses, the cross and its significance, 
 and turned to the other post on which, as he ex- 
 plained to them, were fastened the armorial bear- 
 ings of the great " Captain of France." To him 
 all the captains whom they had seen were mere 
 children, or little herbs which one tramples under- 
 foot as compared to a great tree. Even Onontio, 
 — the governor of New France, — whose name 
 was a daily terror to that mighty nation, the 
 Iroquois, was but one of ten thousand captains 
 who lived beyond the seas. When this great 
 captain said, " I am going to war," all obeyed 
 him. Those ten thousand captains raised com- 
 panies of a hundred warriors each, disposing them 
 according to his orders, on sea or land. Those 
 who were needed at sea embarked on great ships 
 which held four or five hundred or even a thou- 
 sand men, while their Indian canoes held only four 
 or five, or at best ten or twelve. Thus did this 
 
The Pageant of Saint Lusson 47 
 
 king with his vast numbers of followers prepare 
 for war, and when he came to attacking the enemy 
 he was more terrible than thunder, and the earth 
 trembled beneath him, while air and sea were set 
 on fire by the discharge of his cannon. He had 
 been seen in the midst of his warriors covered 
 with the blood of his enemies whom he killed in 
 such numbers that he set flowing rivers of blood. 
 But all this was now long past. No one dared 
 to make war on him ; all nations had submitted 
 to him and begged humbly for peace. 
 
 In this warlike guise Father AUouez presented 
 Louis XIV till the Indian admiration was fully 
 aroused and all were " astonished to hear that 
 there was any man on earth so great and rich and 
 powerful." 
 
 The day closed with a " fine bonfire," lighted 
 toward evening, around which the Frenchmen 
 sang the " Te Deum," thanking God on behalf 
 of " those poor peoples," who did not know 
 enough to do it for themselves, — that they were 
 the subjects of so great and powerful a monarch. 
 The Indians departed to their homes, traders 
 and coureurs de bois disappeared into the forests, 
 the Jesuits returned to their self-sacrificing life 
 of ministry, and adventurous French pioneers set 
 
48 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 out across Jake and wood to explore and claim 
 the vast wilderness thus appropriated by France. 
 The pageant of Saint Lusson was over, and Sault 
 Ste. Marie relapsed into its usual life ; but thus 
 early in the history of the Great Lakes this place 
 had been singled out as a strategic spot. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE BUILDING OF THE GRIFFON 
 
 THE next noteworthy event in the story 
 of the Great Lakes is the building and 
 
 the launching of the Griffon, and the 
 voyage of La Salle from the Niagara River to 
 the southern end of Lake Michigan. Robert 
 Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle, or La Salle as he is 
 usually called, came to Canada in 1666, when 
 he was three or four and thirty years of age. 
 Outwardly cold and reserved, he was inwardly 
 consumed with a burning desire for adventure. 
 After his arrival, he set to work to study the 
 Indian languages, in which he soon became pro- 
 ficient ; and it was his delight to invite Indians to 
 his cabin, and to draw from them tales of the far- 
 off regions in which they dwelt, and especially of 
 those wonderful rivers, the Ohio and the Missis- 
 sippi, by the exploration of which he hoped to 
 provide a new passage to China and Japan. An 
 exploring trip which he took in 1669 gave him 
 
 E 49 
 
50 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 the practical experience which was later to be of 
 value. La Salle was a man of strong prejudices 
 and personal dislikes, who took little pains to 
 overcome the jealousy of those who were envious 
 of him ; but he gained one strong friend and 
 patron, Count Frontenac, the governor of New 
 France, who recognized a kindred spirit in this 
 bold, enterprising young man. 
 
 To a person of La Salle's disposition, the lands 
 to the south of the Great Lakes offered alluring 
 prospects of immediate gain. Instead of the bar- 
 ren soil, gloomy forests, and harsh climate of the 
 lower St. Lawrence Valley, this new country was 
 largely open and abundantly supplied with mead- 
 ows, brooks, and rivers. The soil was so fertile 
 that everything which could be produced in 
 France could be easily raised, and there was an 
 abundance of fish, game, and venison. Colonists 
 would find it easy to supply their own needs, and 
 could engage in profitable cattle raising, for flocks 
 and herds could be left out all winter. La Salle 
 also reported that there was a species of native 
 wild cattle, called the buffalo, whose wool was 
 better than that of any sheep in France. He 
 sought Louis XIV, king of France, and asked 
 permission to found colonies and to conduct the 
 
The Building of the Griffon 51 
 
 fur trade and explorations on the regions border- 
 ing on the Great Lakes. The French king did 
 not wish to found new colonies, for those already 
 in existence had proved very expensive, but he 
 was willing that La Salle should " labor at the 
 discovery of the western parts of New France," 
 provided that he pay all the expenses of the 
 enterprise himself, and bring the matter to a 
 conclusion within five years. With this permis- 
 sion and such money as he could raise. La Salle 
 returned to New France, and in the autumn of 
 1678 set out to put his plans into execution. 
 Detailed and interesting reports of his voyage on 
 the waters of the Great Lakes have been preserved 
 in the entertaining account of the journey which 
 was written by Father Louis Hennepin, an adven- 
 turous missionary who delighted in telling stories 
 about himself and his doings. He was also some- 
 thing of a prophet in foreseeing the time when 
 there would be an " inconceivable commerce " on 
 the Great Lakes, and their shores would be lined 
 with the shops and dwellings of the whites. 
 
 Up to this time the French missionaries and 
 the fur traders had gained the interior by way of 
 the Ottawa River, or the Toronto, and Georgian 
 Bay. La Salle decided to build a sailing-vessel 
 
52 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 on the shore of Lake Erie, in which he could 
 transport his men to the stations he intended to 
 establish, and also carry his trading goods to the 
 Indians, and bring back the furs which he obtained 
 in exchange for them. He already had a fortified 
 post at Fort Frontenac on the northeastern shore 
 of Lake Ontario ; but he could not build his ship 
 at this point, because the natives told him that 
 formidable cataracts interrupted the navigation 
 between Lakes Ontario and Erie. He sent an 
 advance company to establish a station at the 
 head of Lake Ontario, and to seek a convenient 
 site on Lake Erie for the construction of the ship. 
 With this expedition went Father Hennepin, 
 whose graphic account of what he saw and of 
 what he experienced is one of the most interest- 
 ing in the annals of American exploration. The 
 voyagers reached the mouth of the Niagara River 
 in safety. When the current became too strong 
 for them to go farther in their canoe, they landed 
 and pushed forward through the snow. As they 
 made their way along the edge of the river, they 
 heard more and more clearly the roar of falling 
 waters; and, at length, there burst upon their 
 sight the falls of Niagara, or the " Thunder of 
 Waters," as the Indians called it, — that "vast 
 
z 
 
 u 
 
 « 
 a 
 
 I 
 
 
The Building of the Griffon 53 
 
 and prodigious cadence of water which falls down 
 after a surprising and astonishing manner, inso- 
 much that the universe does not afford its parallel, 
 those of Italy and Switzerland being but sorry 
 patterns." Hennepin describes this wonderful 
 cataract as made up of two great cross-streams 
 of water and two falls with an island between, and 
 declares that when this " prodigious quantity " of 
 water comes to fall, there is a din and a noise 
 more deafening than the loudest thunder ; the 
 rebound of the waters was so great that a cloud 
 arose from the foam and hung over the abyss, 
 even when the sun was at its height. He could 
 not say enough of this " most beautiful, and at 
 the same time most frightful cascade " which he 
 saw for the first time on this December day in 
 1678.^ 
 
 While Hennepin and his party were exploring 
 the Niagara, La Motte, the leader of the expedi- 
 
 1 Lake Ontario is 326 ft. lower than Lake Erie and about 30 miles distant. 
 For 1 8 miles the Niagara River flows peacefully along, then suddenly the chan- 
 nel narrows and the waters rush down 5 3 ft. in half a mile, and then drop over 
 a cliff 1 60 ft. in two separate falls, one 600 and the other 200 ft. wide. Seven 
 thousand tons of water are thus discharged every second into a narrow gorge 
 whose nearly perpendicular walls rise aoo ft. on either side. Down its steep 
 slope the imprisoned waters dash in a succession of boiling rapids, white with 
 foam, ibrming in one loop of the channel a curious whirlpool. Issuing ftom 
 this gorge at Lewiston, the river flows tranquilly on to Lake Ontario. 
 
54 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 tion, had selected a site for a fortified house about 
 two leagues above the mouth of the river and not 
 far from the present town of Lewiston. He set 
 his laborers to work, but their task was hard, be- 
 cause the frozen ground had to be thawed with 
 boiling water before it was possible to drive down 
 stakes for a palisade. As the carpenters labored 
 at their tasks, distrustful and jealous Indians from 
 a neighboring Seneca village of the Iroquois loi- 
 tered about, watching them with sullen looks, and 
 intimated in a way that could not be disregarded 
 their unwillingness to allow the work to go on. 
 And well they might ! Niagara was the key to 
 the four upper lakes from which the Iroquois fur 
 trade could be controlled, and this fort was being 
 built expressly to hold in check those vigorous 
 tribes, and put an end to their trade with the 
 English and the Dutch in the furs which they 
 obtained from the Indians of the western terri- 
 tory. La Salle had realized that difficulty would 
 probably arise, and had instructed La Motte to go 
 to the great village of the Senecas and endeavor to 
 gain their consent to the French plans for build- 
 ing the fort and the ship. This La Motte now 
 decided to do. After five days' journey through 
 the snowy forests, he and his companions reached 
 
The Building of the Griffon 55 
 
 the town which was beyond the Genesee and 
 southeast of Rochester, not far from the present 
 town of Victor, New York. The weary travellers 
 were conducted to the wigwam of the principal 
 chief, where women and children flocked to gaze 
 upon the whites. An old man, according to cus- 
 tom, went through the village announcing their 
 arrival, and younger savages washed their feet 
 and then rubbed them with bear's grease. 
 
 The next afternoon. La Motte was summoned 
 to confer with forty-two old men who made up 
 the Indian council. These chiefs, clad in robes 
 of beaver, wolf, or black squirrel, squatted upon 
 the ground ; but, writes Hennepin, " the senators 
 of Venice do not appear with a graver counte- 
 nance and perhaps do not speak with more maj- 
 esty and solidity than these ancient Iroquois." 
 La Motte's interpreter harangued the assembly, 
 stating that the French wished to build a great 
 wooden canoe and to erect a fort on the banks 
 of the Niagara River. He endeavored to con- 
 vince the natives that this enterprise would be for 
 their advantage, as it would enable the French to 
 sell them goods at lower prices than the Dutch 
 and English traders. He enforced every reason 
 with wampum belts, and gifts of axes, knives. 
 
^6 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 coats, and scarlet cloth, — for the best arguments 
 in the world were not listened to by the Indians 
 unless accompanied by presents. The shrewd, 
 savage politicians received the gifts, but were not 
 convinced. Their replies were general and eva- 
 sive and gave no satisfaction. When the council 
 was over, they proceded to torture an Indian 
 prisoner, and La Motte with his men left the 
 camp in disgust to go back and await the arrival 
 of La Salle from Fort Frontenac. La Salle and 
 Tonty, his ever faithful friend and follower, with 
 men and supplies for the expedition arrived at 
 the Seneca town not long after the departure of 
 La Motte and his men. La Salle succeeded in 
 " so dexterously gaining their affection " that the 
 Indians consented to permit him to carry arms 
 and ammunition by the Niagara portage, to build 
 a vessel above the cataract, and to establish a 
 fortified warehouse at the mouth of the river. 
 Armed with this permission, he proceeded to the 
 encampment of La Motte. The rejoicing at this 
 success was short lived, for a few days later report 
 came that a vessel which La Salle had left at the 
 mouth of the Genesee River had been ship- 
 wrecked on the southern shore of Lake Ontario. 
 Of all the equipment for his enterprise with which 
 
The Building of the Griffon 57 
 
 this vessel was laden, only the anchors and cables 
 for the new ship were saved ; but La Salle with 
 his unvarying fortitude went on with the work 
 as if nothing had happened. 
 
 La Salle selected a spot on the banks of the 
 Niagara River above the falls at the mouth of 
 what is now called Cayuga Creek, where the water 
 was quiet, being sheltered by an island from the 
 current of the river — a little village near that 
 spot still bears his name. Hither the little com- 
 pany of thirty men, heavily laden with tools and 
 provisions, journeyed laboriously through the 
 snow on one of the last days of January, 1679. 
 Two Mohegan hunters, who were with the party, 
 set about making bark wigwams for the men and 
 a chapel for Father Hennepin, who had travelled 
 the twelve miles with his portable altar lashed 
 to his back. The ship carpenters went to work 
 at once, and in four days the keel of the vessel 
 was ready. La Salle invited Father Hennepin 
 to drive the first bolt, " but the modesty of my 
 religious profession," he says, "compelled me to 
 decline this honor." So La Salle himself drove 
 the first nail in the ship. 
 
 Fortunately the majority of the Iroquois war- 
 riors had gone on the war-path beyond Lake 
 
58 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 Erie; but although those who had remained at 
 home were less insolent because of the absence 
 of the rest, yet they did not fail to visit the ship- 
 yard frequently, loitering sullenly about and ex- 
 hibiting their displeasure. One of them, pre- 
 tending to be drunk, attacked the blacksmith, 
 and tried to kill him ; but the blacksmith vigor- 
 ously defended himself with a red-hot bar of iron. 
 This, together with the severity of the reprimand 
 administered by Father Hennepin, who always 
 represents himself as indispensable on every occa- 
 sion, induced the savages to depart for the mo- 
 ment. The work went rapidly on, and as the 
 great " wooden canoe " began to show its propor- 
 tions the Indians became more and more alarmed. 
 A few days later a squaw told the French that 
 they meant to burn the vessel on the stocks, and 
 had not a very close watch been kept they would 
 undoubtedly have done so. 
 
 These frequent alarms, the steady cold, and 
 the shortage of supplies owing to the loss of La 
 Salle's vessel and the enmity of the Iroquois, 
 who refused to sell them food, discouraged the 
 shipbuilders. They would certainly have de- 
 serted had not La Salle and Hennepin taken 
 great pains to reassure and cheer them on. 
 
The Building of the Griffon 59 
 
 Toward spring La Salle set out on foot for Fort 
 Frontenac to procure food and supplies and to 
 attend to his personal affairs. His presence was 
 needed there because his enemies had persuaded 
 his creditors that the undertaking was a rash one, 
 and had instigated them to seize all his goods, 
 although Fort Frontenac alone was more than 
 sufficient to pay his debts. During La Salle's 
 absence from Niagara one of the workmen en- 
 deavored to stir up the others to desert. " This 
 bad man," announces Hennepin, "would infal- 
 libly have perverted our carpenters, had not I 
 confirmed them in their good resolution by the 
 exhortations I made them after divine service." 
 
 The Mohegan hunters brought in deer and 
 other game, warmer weather arrived, and cheer- 
 fulness once more prevailed. The shipbuilders 
 went on with their work more briskly, and in the 
 early spring of 1679, before La Salle returned, 
 the vessel was ready to be launched. Father 
 Hennepin blessed the ship and christened it the 
 Grffon, for on the prow La Salle had placed a 
 roughly carved figure of this mythical monster, 
 taken from the coat of arms of Count Frontenac. 
 The assembled company sang a hymn of praise ; 
 three cannon were fired ; and amid loud acclama- 
 
6o The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 tions from both French and Indians, the Griffon 
 glided into the Niagara River. All haste had 
 been made to get her afloat, even before she was 
 entirely completed, to save her from the plots of 
 the Indians, who were determined to burn her. 
 But the men did not wait for her to be finished 
 to put her to use. They immediately quitted 
 their bark wigwams, swung their hammocks 
 under her decks, and that very night, rejoicing in 
 their security from the Indians, all slept soundly 
 on board the ship. 
 
 The Iroquois warriors, returning from a hunt- 
 ing trip, were mightily surprised to see the vessel 
 afloat, and shouted, " Otkon ! Otkon ! " which 
 means " most penetrating wits," to the triumphant 
 Frenchmen. For they could not understand how 
 in so short a time the white men could build 
 so large a canoe, — although the craft was of 
 only about forty-five tons. With her five cannon 
 she was to the savages a wonderful moving for- 
 tress, and inspired in them a wholesome fear and 
 admiration for the French. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 LA SALLE ON THE GREAT LAKES 
 
 IN the summer of 1679, La Salle returned 
 from Fort Frontenac to Niagara to find the 
 Griffon finished and ready for her first 
 voyage. By the completion of this vessel his 
 enterprise was fairly launched. Behind him at 
 Montreal were enemies and creditors ; before 
 him stretched the waters of the Great Lakes, and 
 beyond was the unexplored wilderness. The men 
 had been unable to sail the Griffon up the Niagara 
 River to the mouth of Lake Erie because of the 
 strong adverse current. Now, with the help of 
 a strong wind and with tow-ropes in the most 
 difficult places. La Salle brought the vessel 
 through the turbulent water to the calm outlet of 
 the lake. There the crew celebrated their safe 
 passage with religious services and cannonading 
 and then set sail on the unknown waters. 
 
 To deter his men from the voyage, La Salle's 
 enemies had declared that the lake was full of 
 
 61 
 
6 a The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 rocks and sands. For the first day and night, 
 therefore, the men kept their sounding-lines busy, 
 but navigation proved to be easy. On the fourth 
 day after leaving Niagara, they reached the mouth 
 of that wide river called by the French "The 
 Strait," — Detroit. Here the current was so 
 strong that they came to anchor to wait for a 
 favorable breeze. Soon a brisk wind arose 
 and the Griffon ploughed her way through the 
 rapids between Grosse Isle and the mainland, 
 pioneer of the mighty vessels which to-day make 
 that strait one of the great commercial highways 
 of the world. On both sides stretched fine open 
 fields dotted with fruit trees, and walnut and 
 chestnut groves, and beyond in the distance were 
 lofty forests. All were " so well-disposed," says 
 Hennepin, " that one would think Nature alone 
 without the help of art could not have made so 
 charming a prospect." Flocks of turkeys and 
 swans circled about, and from the deck of the 
 ship herds of deer could be seen roaming the 
 meadows. The Gnffon was soon well stocked 
 with meat, and the returning hunters united in 
 heaping praises on this beautiful spot where fruit 
 and game of every kind abounded, and where 
 even the bears were not so savage as in other 
 
La Salle on the Great Lakes 6^ 
 
 places. Hennepin urged La Salle to make a 
 settlement on this "charming strait," but La 
 Salle coldly reminded him of the great passion 
 which he had professed a few months before for 
 the discovery of a new country, and the priest 
 was silenced. Amid the later hardships of the 
 journey all must have looked longingly back 
 to this time of ease and plenty at the strait of 
 Detroit. 
 
 On the 1 2th of August, the Griffon passed 
 by the site of the present city of Detroit. Had 
 they come here ten years before, the explorers 
 would have found on the bank of the river a 
 large stone, rudely fashioned in the likeness of a 
 human figure and bedaubed with paint, which 
 the Indians worshipped as a manito, or god. 
 But in 1670 French priests, making the first 
 recorded passage through the strait, had come 
 upon this image, and " full of hatred for this 
 false deity," had fallen upon it with their axes, 
 breaking it in pieces and casting it into the water. 
 Beyond Detroit the river widened into a beau- 
 tiful little sheet of water. As it was St. Claire's 
 day, Hennepin's proposal that the name of the 
 founder of his order be given to this lake was 
 carried out, and it received its present name. 
 
64 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 When the Griffon had crossed the lake, the 
 men saw before them wide marshes through which 
 the swift-moving river had many a winding chan- 
 nel. They had come to the St. Clair Flats, a 
 fan-shaped delta of seven channels, on which has 
 been built to-day a popular summer resort. They 
 set to work sounding one passage after another, 
 only to find them shallow and almost barred with 
 shoals. But at last they came upon an excellent 
 channel about a league broad, with no sands and 
 a depth everywhere of from three to eight fath- 
 oms of water through which the vessel sailed 
 easily toward Lake Huron. At the mouth of 
 the river, however, they were forced to drop 
 anchor and remain for several days. A north 
 wind had been blowing, driving the water of the 
 three upper lakes into the strait. This had in- 
 creased so much the usual force of the current 
 that it was as violent as that of the Niagara, and 
 entirely impassable for a vessel like the Griffon. 
 Even when the wind turned southerly, La Salle 
 could make no headway against this current until 
 he sent ashore a dozen men who hauled and 
 towed the vessel along the beach for half an 
 hour, dragging her out of the narrow mouth of 
 the channel into the wave-tossed waters of the 
 
La Salle on the Great Lakes 65 
 
 lake. Once more all returned "thanks to the 
 Almighty for their happy navigation," and set 
 sail on the 23d of August on Lake Huron. 
 
 The favoring winds soon died down, and La 
 Salle lay becalmed for two days among the is- 
 lands of Thunder Bay. Starting from there at 
 noon on his way northward, he was caught in a 
 furious westerly gale. For hours the little vessel 
 tossed and drifted over the raging waters of the 
 lake, lying at the mercy of wind and wave. 
 Even La Salle gave up hope and told his men 
 to prepare for death. All fell on their knees 
 except the pilot, who devoted the time instead 
 to cursing and swearing against his employer for 
 having brought him there to perish in a "nasty 
 lake, and lose the glory he had acquired by long 
 and happy navigations on the ocean." But Pilot 
 Lucas and his brave commander were not des- 
 tined to perish in that storm. Hennepin vowed 
 an altar to St. Anthony of Padua, prudently 
 agreeing to set it up in Louisiana if they should 
 reach there. The storm-clouds rolled away, the 
 waters grew quiet, and the sun shone out on the 
 wooded cliffs of the islands of Bois Blanc and 
 Mackinac, and the dense forests of Michigan. 
 The vessel anchored behind the point of St. 
 
66 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 Ignace, in the harbor of MichilimackinaCj the 
 settlement which was at once the centre of Jesuit 
 missions and of Indian traders. 
 
 The sound of the Griffon's cannon brought out a 
 varied throng from the wigwams and cabins on 
 shore. Shouting Indians gazed with wonder at 
 this huge wooden canoe ; lawless French traders, 
 swarthy from long years in the wilderness, to 
 whom the distance of this trading post from 
 civilization was its strongest recommendation, 
 lounged idly out of their cabins, gazing with 
 resentment at this invader of their trade and 
 country ; while black-robed Jesuit priests hurried 
 to the shore to welcome the newcomers. Indians, 
 traders, and Jesuits united in a show of welcome 
 to La Salle as he landed, finely dressed and 
 wearing a scarlet cloak bordered with broad gold 
 lace. All marched to the little bark chapel in 
 the Ottawa village, and united with the voyagers 
 in hearing mass and giving thanks for their safe 
 passage. 
 
 At this settlement La Salle found four of fifteen 
 men whom he had sent ahead the autumn before 
 to buy furs, and to go to the tribes along the 
 Illinois River, making preparations for his com- 
 ing. Most of these men had been enticed from 
 
La Salle on the Great Lakes 67 
 
 his service, and had wasted the goods given them 
 to exchange for furs, using them for their own 
 personal gain. Troubled over his affairs in 
 Canada La Salle had meant to return from this 
 point to Montreal, leaving Tonty to conduct his 
 party to the Illinois River. But he soon felt the 
 hostile spirit at the trading post, and realized 
 that his presence was necessary to keep his men 
 from being drawn away. Even the swarms of 
 Indians who hovered in their canoes about the 
 vessel regarded it with wonder and jealousy rather 
 than friendliness, and La Salle feared that the 
 Illinois tribes would be tampered with by his 
 enemies. 
 
 He determined to push on at once, and em- 
 barked early in September. The vessel pro- 
 ceeded across Lake Michigan, called by the 
 French and Indians Lake Illinois from the name 
 of the tribes who inhabited its southern shores, 
 and cast anchor at the entrance of Green Bay. 
 Here matters took a turn for the better. As the 
 vessel lay tossing about behind a point of the 
 bay, an Indian chief came out in his canoe to 
 greet the Frenchmen. When he learned that 
 La Salle was a friend of Count Frontenac and 
 bore his commission, the Indian told him of his 
 
68 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 own warm friendship for Frontenac, for whom he 
 would gladly lay down his life, and welcomed La 
 Salle with the greatest cordiality. He reported, 
 too, the presence of Frenchmen near by, and La 
 Salle found the faithful remnant of his advance 
 party waiting with a cargo of furs which they had i 
 collected. Eager to satisfy his clamorous credit- 
 ors, he determined to send back the Griffon, in 
 charge of the pilot and five men, with this load 
 of furs. On the i8th of September, the Griffon 
 fired a parting shot and started for Niagara, to 
 return as soon as she had discharged her 
 cargo ; and La Salle, with Hennepin and four- 
 teen others, embarked in four canoes for the 
 south. 
 
 The canoes had hardly started when a sudden 
 September storm swept across the lake. The 
 waves washed into the heavily laden canoes, dark- 
 ness fell, and it was only by constant shouting 
 that the men kept their boats together and got 
 to shore. For four days the storm raged with 
 unabated fury. As La Salle and his men waited 
 from day to day in their cheerless encampment, 
 living on pumpkins and Indian corn presented 
 them by the friendly Indian chief and the meat 
 of a single porcupine brought in by a hunter, the 
 
La Salle on the Great Lakes 69 
 
 thought of the Griffon haunted them. Their 
 worst fears proved afterward to have been ful- 
 filled ; she was never heard of again. With her 
 sank the cargo which was to have restored La 
 Salle's credit in Montreal; and with her, too, 
 perished the high hopes that had been set upon 
 this first vessel on the upper lakes. 
 
 Although La Salle feared the worst, he did 
 not turn back. As soon as the lake grew calm 
 the four canoes set out again, coasting southward 
 along the shore of Wisconsin. But the elements 
 were against them. Storm after storm drove 
 them ashore, where they spent wretched days and 
 nights among the rocks and bushes, crouched 
 around driftwood fires with nothing to shelter 
 them from snow and rain but their blankets. As 
 they went southward, steep, high bluffs ran so 
 close to the lake that it was hard to find a 
 landing-place. Yet the violence of the wind was 
 so great that they were compelled at evening to 
 drag their canoes to the top of the bluffs in order 
 not to leave them exposed all night to the waves 
 which would have dashed them to pieces. In 
 the morning, in order to reembark, two men had 
 to go into the water to the waist and hold a 
 canoe upright until it was loaded, pushing it out 
 
yo The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 or drawing it back as the waves advanced or 
 retreated. Food gave out and the men paddled 
 from morning till night with nothing to eat but 
 a daily handful of Indian corn and hawthorn ber- 
 ries which they picked on shore and devoured 
 so ravenously that they made them ill. Exhaus- 
 tion and famine stared them in the face, but relief 
 was in sight. 
 
 One morning as the men were paddling along 
 near the site of Milwaukee, they saw upon the 
 shore a cloud of ravens and eagles hovering over 
 something. They hastened on land and found 
 the body of a deer which had been killed by a 
 wolf. This was the beginning of better things. 
 As the little fleet advanced toward the south, they 
 found the country ever fairer and the weather 
 more temperate. There was an abundance of 
 game, of which there had hitherto been an excep- 
 tional lack. They passed the Chicago River and 
 circled the end of the lake, landing at the mouth 
 of the St. Joseph. Here La Salle waited for 
 Tonty to join them, employing the time in build- 
 ing a fort. On the third of December the party 
 sailed up the river, bound for the villages of the 
 Illinois. On a later trip in 1682 La Salle reached 
 the Illinois settlements by a shorter route, cross- 
 
La Salle on the Great Lakes 71 
 
 ing from his fort to the river Chicago, and jour- 
 neying from its waters into a northern branch of 
 the Illinois River. 
 
 In four months La Salle had traversed the 
 length of Lake Erie, had passed through the 
 strait of Detroit, up Lake Huron, through 
 the Straits of Mackinac, and down Lake Michi- 
 gan ; from the sites of Buffalo and Cleveland he 
 had sailed past Detroit and Milwaukee even to 
 Chicago, and had then journeyed inland to the 
 Illinois River. He had lost his vessel and her 
 crew, as well as all his furs ; he had met 
 with hostility from French and Indian alike ; he 
 had been deserted by most of his advance party, 
 and had held his own crew only by his presence 
 and the dominating force of his personality ; he 
 had suffered endless hardships and privations : 
 but nothing had shaken his purpose. In later 
 years he followed the Illinois and the Mississippi to 
 the Gulf of Mexico and led a colony to the limits 
 of the present state of Texas, where he was mur- 
 dered by one of his men. In history. La Salle 
 stands out as a man whose courage and persever- 
 ing fortitude in the face of almost insuperable 
 obstacles mark him as one of the greatest explorers 
 the world has ever known. We do well to join 
 
72 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 with Hennepin in saying, " Those who shall be 
 so happy as to inhabit that noble country cannot 
 but remember with gratitude those who discovered 
 the way by venturing to sail upon unknown 
 lakes." 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 A HAPLESS FRENCH GOVERNOR 
 
 LIKE all Strong men Frontenac made 
 many enemies. He was recalled in 1682, 
 and General La Barre, a man of about 
 sixty, was sent out in his place. La Barre had 
 made a good record in the West Indies, but was 
 entirely unable to handle the difficult problems 
 which met him in New France. In an evil hour 
 for the French, the Iroquois had conquered the 
 southern neighbors with whom they had long 
 waged wars that had occupied much of their time 
 and strength. Now, they were free to turn on 
 the Indian allies of Canada of whose commercial 
 gains through the fur trade with the French they 
 had long been envious. Frontenac before his de- 
 parture had found the Iroquois unusually arrogant 
 and unruly, although they had come to regard 
 him as the greatest of all " Onontios," as they 
 named the governors of New France. The 
 Dutch and the English had meanwhile made 
 
 73 
 
74 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 more or less successful advances to the Iroquois, 
 who now fully realized their own importance 
 from the efforts of both French and English to 
 gain their support. 
 
 For two years La Barre struggled on, entan- 
 gling rather than helping the situation. At length 
 an Iroquois chief was murdered in a village of 
 French Indians, and the crisis came. In the early 
 spring of 1684, French canoes were plundered by 
 the Senecas and La Barre felt that he must assert 
 his power, or the Indians would lose their respect 
 for the French. After making great preparations, 
 he started with his soldiers and frontiersmen for 
 the Seneca country by way of the St. Lawrence 
 to Fort Frontenac and thence across Lake On- 
 tario. The opposing current of the river was so 
 strong that frequently the men could make no 
 progress by paddling, but were obliged to tow the 
 canoes or push them along with poles. Every 
 few miles were rapids around which the canoes 
 were transported and through which the flatboats 
 were pulled with the greatest effort. The mos- 
 quitoes were " insufferably troublesome," hovering 
 over the men in such clouds that they could 
 hardly see their way, — so one of the soldiers 
 wrote. At Fort Frontenac, the men fell ill of a 
 
A Hapless French Governor 75 
 
 malarial fever which killed many and disabled 
 more. La Barre repented more than once of 
 entering upon an expedition that he now saw 
 would be disastrous. 
 
 Whatever his former warlike purposes, La 
 Barre was now eager for peace. He sent Le 
 Moyne, a veteran interpreter whom the Iroquois 
 called the " Partridge," to the Onondagas asking 
 them to meet him on the southern side of the 
 lake, twenty miles or so north of Oswego. Le 
 Moyne returned in a few days with the famous 
 Onondaga chief, " Big Mouth " ; in French this 
 is " La Grande Gueule," which the soldiers short- 
 ened into " Grangula." Big Mouth had recently 
 been conferring with the English, whose arbitrary 
 demands had offended his pride ; he was now in 
 a haughty mood that boded ill for the French. 
 
 The Indian chief was accompanied by a train 
 of thirty young warriors. As soon as he disem- 
 barked. General La Barre sent him a present of 
 bread and wine, and thirty salmon-trouts. At 
 the same time he gave him to understand that 
 he was pleased at his arrival, and would be glad 
 to have an interview with him after he had rested 
 himself. To conceal from Big Mouth the weak- 
 ness of the French forces Le Moyne represented 
 
76 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 to him that the most of the soldiers had been left 
 behind at Fort Frontenac, and that the troops 
 which he saw were the general's guards ; but one 
 of the Iroquois knew a little of the French tongue. 
 Strolling noiselessly about the tents by night he 
 overheard the talk of the soldiers and learned the 
 true state of affairs. 
 
 It was two days after his arrival before Big 
 Mouth gave notice to La Barre that he was ready 
 for an interview. The council was held on an 
 open spot between the two encampments. From 
 the picture drawn by one of the French soldiers 
 we see the arrangement. La Barre was seated in 
 state in an armchair with his Jesuit interpreter 
 beside him and the French officers ranged on his 
 right and left. The two lines of French soldiers 
 formed two more sides of the square. Opposite 
 La Barre sat the Indians with Big Mouth, their 
 spokesman, in front, and between them in the 
 centre of the square was placed the great Calumet 
 or Pipe of Peace. The stem of this huge pipe 
 was about four feet long, and the body or bowl 
 about eight inches high. The bowl was of hand- 
 some red stone, well polished, and the stem of 
 a strong reed or cane, trimmed with yellow, white, 
 and green feathers. In shape it resembled a huge 
 
Citnoix ctbu 
 
 
 
 ■on^iawM ^hani 
 
 *b-94^ei 
 
 iAC rRONTXJSTAf" 
 
 La Barre and Grangula 
 
A Hapless French Governor 77 
 
 hammer more than anything else. The Indians 
 used these calumets for negotiations as we use a 
 flag of truce, holding them peculiarly sacred. To 
 violate the rights of this venerable pipe was re- 
 garded among them as a flaming crime that would 
 draw down mischief upon their nations. About 
 this calumet were piled the wampum belts to be 
 presented by the speakers. 
 
 La Barre opened the council, speaking boldly 
 and with apparent assurance. He made no al- 
 lusion to his original purpose of making war on 
 the Senecas, but announced that the king, his 
 master, had sent him there with a guard to meet 
 the principal chiefs of the Five Nations at an 
 appointed council fire. The Five Nations had 
 made infractions upon the peace concluded be- 
 tween them and the French. Should Big Mouth 
 be willing, as their representative, to make rep- 
 aration and offer promises for the future, the 
 great French monarch desired that La Barre and 
 Big Mouth should smoke together the calumet 
 of peace. 
 
 La Barre recounted the three offences of the 
 Iroquois. They had robbed and ill-used French 
 traders ; for this he demanded reparation. They 
 had brought the English to the lakes which be- 
 
78 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 longed to the French, thus diverting trade from 
 the latter ; this he would forget, provided it did 
 not happen again. They had attacked the Illinois, 
 and still held many in captivity. " These people 
 are my master's children," said La Barre, " and 
 must therefore cease to be your slaves." They 
 must be sent home at once. He enforced each 
 statement with a wampum belt, and ended every 
 request with an announcement, as bold as though 
 he had the whole French army at his back, that 
 should these demands not be complied with, he 
 " had express orders to declare war," even going 
 so far once as to say, " in case of your refusal, 
 war is positively proclaimed." He would gladly 
 leave them in peace, should they prove "religious 
 observers of the treaties," but if not he added, 
 concluding with a statement which he knew to be 
 false, he would be obliged to join the governor of 
 New York, who had orders from his king to 
 assist La Barre in burning the five villages and 
 cutting off the Iroquois. 
 
 While La Barre's interpreter translated this 
 speech, Grangula sat silent and attentive, gazing 
 steadily at the bowl of his pipe. After the ha- 
 rangue was finished he rose and walked round 
 inside the square made by the French and savages. 
 
A Hapless French Governor 79 
 
 five or six times. Then he returned to his place, 
 and drawing himself to his full height began to 
 speak. " Onontio, I honor you," he said, " and 
 all the warriors that accompany me do the same. 
 Your interpreter has made an end of his discourse, 
 and now I come to begin mine. My voice glides 
 to your ear, pray listen to my words." 
 
 He thought that the French captain must have 
 started out from Quebec with some strange idea 
 that the Five Nations had been wiped out by fire 
 or flood. Nothing else, he implied, could make 
 him set out against so powerful a federation with 
 such an army. The Indian chief ironically as- 
 sured the French general of the continued pros- 
 perity of the Five Nations, congratulating him 
 that he brought the calumet of peace, rather than 
 the bloody axe that had been so often dyed with 
 the blood of the French. Then he spoke out 
 boldly and directly, telling La Barre that he knew 
 better than to believe the Frenchman's pretence 
 that he did not have any other purpose in ap- 
 proaching the lake than to smoke the pipe of 
 peace with the Onondagas. He saw plainly that 
 the Onontio meant to "knock them on the head," 
 if the French arms had not been so much weak- 
 ened. The French soldiers were to be congratu- 
 
8o The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 lated that the Great Spirit had visited them with 
 sickness, for only thus had their lives been saved 
 from Indian massacre. Even the women and 
 old men and children would have attacked the 
 French camp without fear, had not Akouessan 
 (Le Moyne) appeared at the Onondaga village 
 announcing that he was an ambassador of peace, 
 not of war. 
 
 With this bold and telling introduction, in 
 which he revealed to the French his full compre- 
 hension of their weakness and of their deceit, Big 
 Mouth proceeded to consider the accusations of 
 La Barre. The pillage of French traders he justi- 
 fied on the ground that they were carrying arms 
 to the Illinois, and for this he flatly refused to 
 give satisfaction, declaring insultingly that even 
 the old men of his tribe had long ceased to fear 
 the French. They had conducted the English to 
 the lakes to traffic with French allies, just as the 
 Algonquins conducted the French to the Five 
 Nations to trade with them. Moreover, he 
 claimed that they had a perfect right to do as 
 they pleased in this matter. " We are born free- 
 men," he declared proudly, "and have no de- 
 pendence either upon the Onontio [governor of 
 Canada], or the Corker [governor of New York]. 
 
A Hapless French Governor 8 1 
 
 We have power to go where we please, to con- 
 duct whoever we will to the places we resort to, 
 and to buy and sell where we think fit." If the 
 French chose they might make slaves of their 
 allies, robbing them of the liberty of entertaining 
 any other Indians, but the Five Nations would 
 brook no such interference. The Iroquois at- 
 tacked the Illinois because they invaded their 
 territory, hunting beavers on their lands. Big 
 Mouth met the reproof of La Barre with a bold 
 stroke in return. He declared that in defending 
 their own lands against the Illinois they had done 
 less than the English and French, who without 
 any right, had usurped the grounds they now 
 possessed, dislodging from them several nations 
 in order to make way for the building of their 
 cities, villages, and forts. 
 
 Big Mouth closed his address with a warning. 
 A year ago the hatchet had been buried in the 
 presence of Count Frontenac at his fort, and the 
 tree of peace had been planted. It was then stipu- 
 lated that this fort should be used as a place of 
 retreat for traders, and not a refuge for soldiers. 
 Big Mouth warned the French to take care lest 
 so great a number of soldiers as he now saw 
 before him " stifle and choke the tree of peace," 
 
82 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 and hinder it from shading both countries with 
 its leaves. The Iroquois were ready to dance 
 under its branches the dance of peace, and never 
 dig up the hatchet to cut it down, unless the 
 governors of Canada and New York, jointly or 
 separately, should invade the country given by the 
 Great Spirit to their ancestors. The Indian ora- 
 tor presented two wampum belts and sat down. 
 
 As soon as he had done, Le Moyne and the 
 Jesuits interpreted his answer to La Barre, who 
 thereupon retired to his tent and stormed and 
 blustered till somebody came and represented to 
 him that good manners were not to be expected 
 from an Iroquois. It was little wonder that 
 La Barre raged. The Indian chief had seen 
 through his artifices, had yielded to none of his 
 demands, and had contrived to assert the com- 
 plete independence of his own tribes and their 
 contempt for the French. 
 
 Big Mouth entertained some of the French 
 officers at a feast, which he opened for them by 
 dancing an Indian dance. There was another 
 council in the afternoon, and the terms of peace 
 were settled upon in the evening. These terms 
 were in the usual form of Indian treaties. A 
 " word" of the Iroquois was answered by a "word" 
 
A Hapless French Governor 83 
 
 of the French accepting it, and all disputed 
 points were taken up in a series of such "words." 
 
 The Iroquois offered to the French a beverage 
 devoid of bitterness to purify whatever inconven- 
 ience they had experienced on their voyage, and 
 to dispel whatever bad air they had breathed 
 between Montreal and this council fire, — a bev- 
 erage of which the malarial French were certainly 
 in dire need. They reminded the French of the 
 deep ditch dug the year before, into which all 
 unkind things that might occur were to be cast, 
 and requested the French to throw into it the 
 Seneca robbery, to which the French agreed. 
 Again the tree of peace was set up, each side sol- 
 emnly adjuring the other to sustain and strengthen 
 it. The French agreed to depart at once, and 
 then, — and not till then, — did the Iroquois con- 
 sent to renew the former treaty, " dispelling all the 
 clouds that had obscured the Sun from their sight." 
 
 Thus ended the grand expedition of La Barre. 
 No real satisfaction had been gained by the 
 French, but a weak truce had been made, and 
 the Iroquois had taken the opportunity to assert 
 boldly their independence of French and English 
 alike, whom they treated as invaders of their 
 rightful possessions. 
 
84 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 Big Mouth and his men returned to their 
 homes, and the French set out for Montreal. 
 The few healthy men that remained manned the 
 General's canoes and took charge of the flat- 
 bottomed boats in which the soldiers were carried. 
 Of the dangers attendant on shooting the rapids 
 in these boats one of the soldiers draws a vivid pic- 
 ture, declaring that he and his companions wished 
 themselves back in the canoes that had brought 
 them up, when they shot down such precipices of 
 water as had never been heard of before. The 
 main current wound its way in and out past eddies 
 and rocks, dashing along as fast as a cannon ball, 
 and the men steered as well as they could along 
 this zigzag course, knowing that a false stroke of 
 the oar would send them upon the rocks. But in 
 spite of the discomfort and the danger, this soldier 
 confesses from the safe shelter of Montreal that, 
 though the risk was very great, "yet, by way of 
 compensation one had the satisfaction of running 
 a great way in a very short time." And he closes 
 with a word of sympathy for La Barre. "All the 
 world blames our General for his bad success. . . . 
 The people here are busy in wafting to court a 
 thousand calumnies against him. . . . But after all 
 the poor man could do no more than he did." 
 
PART II 
 THE STRUGGLE FOR POSSESSION 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE FOUNDING OF DETROIT 
 
 AFTER the failure which has been re- 
 counted in the preceding chapter, La 
 Barre was recalled to France, and a new 
 governor, Denonville, sent over to take his place. 
 He had not much greater success and was in turn 
 replaced by Count Frontenac, who returned to 
 the scene of his former labors. This was in 
 1689, when England and France were at war. 
 For the remaining nine years of his life Fron- 
 tenac devoted all his energies to defending New 
 France against the English and the Iroquois and 
 to holding what the French had already gained 
 on the Great Lakes. In November, 1698, in his 
 seventy-eighth year, he died, and was deeply 
 mourned as a strong governor and beloved 
 leader. He had come out to New France in 
 1672, and during his long term of service he had 
 used his power and influence not only to build 
 up the settlements on the St. Lawrence, but also 
 
 87 
 
88 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 to plant on the shores of the Great Lakes and 
 the rivers beyond a line of French forts and trad- 
 ing posts. He had gathered about him a group 
 of young men who shared his enthusiasm for 
 expansion and were eager to carry on his work. 
 Five years before his death, Frontenac had sent 
 one of his men, Cadillac, to the Straits of Mack- 
 inac to hold that centre of the fur trade. 
 
 Cadillac was a rough, forceful soldier who was 
 summary in his methods and short in his speech. 
 He was well suited to the command of a frontier 
 post and did good work in keeping the lake 
 Indians from alliance with the enemies of the 
 French. He did not, however, get on well with 
 the missionaries at Michilimackinac. They 
 resented his presence and his influence with the 
 Indians, for whose conversion to Christianity they 
 were earnestly laboring. Cadillac soon came to 
 see that Detroit and not Mackinac was the key 
 to the interior. Whoever held the narrow 
 channel connecting Lake Erie and Lake Huron 
 would control the fur trade of the whole lake 
 region. He hastened to Quebec to gain support 
 for his scheme of erecting a fort and trading sta- 
 tion on the Detroit River. There he was stoutly 
 opposed by the Jesuits, who foresaw that the 
 
The Founding of Detroit 89 
 
 carrying out of his project would mean the ruin 
 of their mission, which could not compete com- 
 mercially with the new station, and that the 
 extension of trade would bring the vices of 
 civilization to the natives. Nothing daunted, 
 Cadillac went over the seas to France, gained 
 the favor of the colonial minister, and returned 
 to Canada with permission to found his colony. 
 He reached Detroit with a band of one hundred 
 colonists and soldiers on the 24th of July, 1701. 
 Cadillac had done well in choosing Detroit as 
 the situation for the first permanent colony on 
 the lakes. In the century that was past the 
 Great Lakes had been discovered and explored ; 
 the eighteenth century was to witness their occu- 
 pation and the contest for the possession of this 
 rich country. In this long strife, first France 
 and England, and then England and the Ameri- 
 can colonies, were to come to blows, while always 
 on these shores unceasing warfare would be 
 waged between the advancing white man and the 
 retreating red man. In the opening years of the 
 new century Cadillac was taking the first step in 
 permanent occupation of the country, planting 
 his settlement on a site so important that a wise 
 English leader was at that very time urging upon 
 
go The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 the New York assembly its colonization by the 
 English. So long as Lake Erie and Lake On- 
 tario had been avoided by the French, the north- 
 ern Ottawa River-Georgian Bay route had been 
 the highway of travel and trade. The easier 
 southern route was now open to the French, but 
 it was even more convenient and accessible to 
 their English rivals. The French were brought 
 face to face with the problem of how to hold the 
 trade of the upper lakes from the English. In 
 the solution of this problem Detroit would be 
 the key. 
 
 There rushes through the strait of Detroit 
 more water than through any other river in the 
 world, save only the Niagara and the St. Law- 
 rence. Through this channel, whose average 
 width is a mile and whose length is only twenty- 
 seven miles, pour in a steady, even current, un- 
 broken by rapids or eddies, and with a speed of 
 over two miles an hour, the waters of three lakes, 
 Superior, Michigan, and Huron, and of the 
 hundreds of streams that feed them. This little 
 river is the natural outlet for eighty-two thousand 
 square miles of lake surface and one hundred 
 and twenty-five thousand square miles of land. 
 Down the swift current floated in those early days 
 
The Founding of Detroit 91 
 
 scores of canoes paddled by silent Indians and 
 swarthy coureurs de bois, bearing to the mar- 
 kets at Montreal, Quebec, and Albany loads of 
 beaver, mink, and otter furs of immense value. 
 They were the forerunners of a tonnage pass- 
 ing through that strait which to-day exceeds that 
 of the Thames and London. 
 
 Cadillac and his soldiers and settlers, fifty each, 
 had paddled, pushed, and carried their canoes, 
 heavily laden with provisions, tools, ammunition, 
 and supplies, all the way from Montreal. As 
 they gazed on the beautiful site of their future 
 homes, their weariness passed away. With shouts 
 of joy they drew their canoes to the bank and 
 unpacked their heavy loads for the last time. 
 
 No exploring party had ever passed through 
 the Detroit River without longing to stop. To 
 appreciate the charm and wealth of that spot, one 
 must read the vivid descriptions which were 
 written by men of that time. Such an enthusiast 
 was Cadillac. Two months after his arrival, he 
 wrote home the following, which would do credit 
 to a promoter's prospectus of the present day. 
 
 " The business of war being so different from 
 that of writing," he said, " I have not the ability 
 to make a portrait of a country so worthy of a 
 
92 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 better pen than mine ; but since you have di- 
 rected me to render an account of it, I will do 
 so." He described the river and then continued : 
 " Its borders are so many vast prairies, and the 
 freshness of the beautiful waters keeps the banks 
 always green. The prairies are bordered by long 
 and broad rows of fruit trees which have never 
 felt the hand of the vigilant gardener. Here 
 also orchards, young and old, soften and bend 
 their branches, under the weight and quantity of 
 their fruit, towards the mother earth which has 
 produced them. It is in this land, so fertile, that 
 the ambitious vine, which has never wept under 
 the knife of the vine-dresser, builds a thick roof 
 with its large leaves and heavy clusters, weighing 
 down the top of the tree which receives it, and 
 often stifling it with its embrace. 
 
 "Under these broad walks one sees assembled 
 by hundred the timid deer and fawn, also the 
 squirrel bounding in his eagerness to collect the 
 apples and plums with which the earth is covered. 
 Here the cautious turkey calls and conducts her 
 numerous brood to gather the grapes, and here 
 also their mates come to fill their large and glutton- 
 ous crops. Golden pheasants, the quail, the par- 
 tridge, woodcock, and numerous doves swarm in 
 
The Founding of Detroit 93 
 
 the woods and cover the country, which is dotted 
 and broken with thickets and high forests of full- 
 grown trees. . . . There are ten species of forest 
 trees, among them are the walnut, white oak, red 
 oak, the ash, the pine, whitewood and cotton- 
 wood ; straight as arrows, without knots, and 
 almost without branches, except at the very top, 
 and of prodigious size. . . . The fish here are 
 nourished and bathed by living water of crystal 
 clearness, and their great abundance renders them 
 none the less delicious. Swans are so numerous 
 that one would take for lilies the reeds in which 
 they are crowded together. The gabbling goose, 
 the duck, the widgeon [a kind of duck], and the 
 bustard are so abundant that to give an idea of 
 their numbers I must use the expression of a 
 savage whom I asked before arriving if there 
 was much game. ' So much,' he said, ' that they 
 draw up in lines to let the boats pass through.' 
 ... In a word, the climate is temperate, and 
 the air purified through the day and night by a 
 gentle breeze. The skies are always serene and 
 spread sweet and fresh influence which makes one 
 enjoy a tranquil sleep." 
 
 Cadillac landed at the narrowest part of the 
 river, where the city now stands, and began to 
 
94 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 build the little village which was to survive with- 
 out a break the conflicts of the coming century. 
 In this wilderness, inhabited only by wild beasts 
 and savages, the first thought must be for de- 
 fence ; only when that was provided, could the 
 settlers turn to plans for their own shelter from 
 wind and weather. On the first rise of ground 
 back from the river, along the line of the present 
 Jefferson Avenue, Cadillac marked out a space 
 of a little less than an acre, with a width of about 
 two city blocks and a depth of one, which was to 
 be enclosed by a palisade. Small trees were hewn 
 in the forest and fashioned into sharply pointed 
 pickets which were driven into the ground as 
 closely as possible, thus forming a solid fence 
 ten or twelve feet high. At the four corners 
 were bastions of stout oak pickets from which 
 the soldiers could shoot along the line of the 
 palisade. Inside the stockade, Cadillac laid out 
 a street twelve feet wide, and assigned small lots 
 to the settlers and soldiers. The settlers bought 
 theirs outright, but Cadillac retained the owner- 
 ship of the others. 
 
 Fifty hours after their landing, on the day 
 sacred to St. Anne, they began the foundation 
 of a chapel on the very spot where St. Anne's 
 
The Founding of Detroit 95 
 
 church stands to-day. In a month the chapel 
 was completed by a rude cross placed over the 
 door, and a bell summoned the colonists to daily 
 prayers. When the storehouse and magazine for 
 ammunition were also finished the people set to 
 work on their own log huts. Trees were cut in 
 the forest, and the rough-hewn logs were hauled 
 to the spot. There a framework was set up, the 
 logs were fitted into it, and the cracks were filled 
 with mortar and mud. Last of all the top was 
 covered with a roof of birch bark, or was thatched 
 with grass. Land outside the stockade was as- 
 signed for agriculture, each soldier having a half 
 acre for cultivation, and the civilians larger tracts. 
 That very year wheat was sown for the next sum- 
 mer. With remarkable speed the settlement 
 sprang up in the wilderness, and before the end 
 of August took on an appearance of stability and 
 permanence. 
 
 Cadillac now summoned the Indians to council 
 and urged them to build settlements in the vicin- 
 ity. He was wise enough to see that if a suffi- 
 cient number of friendly Indians located near by, 
 traders would come to buy their furs, the colony 
 could rely on greater numbers in case of attack, 
 and the scanty three months' supply of provisions 
 
96 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 brought from Montreal could be eked out by 
 food bought from Indian hunters. Three large 
 villages sprang up, and within eight months the 
 population of the strait was some six thousand 
 people, whites and Indians. 
 
 Hitherto there had been on the Great Lakes 
 nothing looking to family life or permanent resi- 
 dence, but in the spring of 1702, Madame Cadillac 
 and Madame Tonty, wife of the captain of the 
 garrison, started in open canoes, manned by 
 Indians and Canadians, on the seven-hundred - 
 mile journey from Montreal to Detroit. At a 
 season when storms were likely to be frequent 
 these two women braved the hardships of the 
 trip, going up the rapids of the St. Lawrence, 
 across Lake Ontario and around Niagara, and up 
 Lake Erie to the strait. With her Madame 
 Cadillac brought her little boy, Jacques, six years 
 of age ; her oldest son was already with his father. 
 These were the first white women to come to the 
 Great Lakes. They were soon followed by the 
 wives and families of other settlers. By 1708 the 
 settlement had grown so fast that houses were 
 built outside the stockade, as the twenty -nine huts 
 within the enclosure were not sufficient to accom- 
 modate the people. 
 
The Founding of Detroit 97 
 
 The little colony suffered the usual troubles of 
 frontier life, but managed to survive them. In 
 1703 several of the buildings were destroyed by a 
 fire set by the Indians. For the first few years 
 the colony was managed by a company, but in 
 1705 Cadillac succeeded in getting full control 
 and ruled there with as absolute sway as had any 
 feudal chief in his turreted castle. He owned the 
 public buildings and defences and he alone could 
 grant lots for settlement. From him alone could 
 the people obtain their liquor, and to prevent 
 excessive drinking by the Indians and traders he 
 restricted the amount sold to each person at one 
 time and charged a high price for it. To him 
 also all must come for permits to carry on their 
 diiferent trades and occupations. For every 
 privilege the people must pay, and right bitterly 
 did they complain of their commandant to his 
 enemies, though when he walked along the nar- 
 row street, firm and erect, in soldierly costume 
 and with clanking sword, every hat was doffed. 
 Doubtless some of his charges were exorbitant, 
 but the money was turned back into the improve- 
 ment of the colony, as, for instance, to build a 
 public windmill where the people could pay to 
 have their corn ground. The blacksmith com- 
 
98 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 plained that he had to pay six hundred francs a 
 year and two casks of ale for the privilege of 
 blacksmithing, besides having to keep all Cadillac's 
 horses shod. The latter task could not have 
 been very arduous, for until 1706 there were no 
 horses in the settlement, and of the three that 
 Cadillac bought in that year only one, named 
 Colin, was alive in 171 1. 
 
 In 1 7 10 Cadillac was ordered to go to 
 Louisiana to govern the colony there, and his 
 connection with Detroit and the Great Lakes was 
 brought to an abrupt end. The settlement which 
 he handed over to his successor was fairly pros- 
 perous. In the following winter, however, while 
 the men of the neighboring Indian tribes were 
 away at their hunting-grounds, a thousand or 
 more hostile Indians of the Fox- Wisconsin river 
 tribes descended upon the region and prepared to 
 settle there. The colonists were powerless to 
 prevent them, but waited anxiously for the return 
 of the hunting-parties. In May they came, and 
 under the leadership of the French finally drove 
 off the enemy after a hard and bloody siege in 
 which many lives were lost. For the next ten 
 years the colony was so weak that its abandon- 
 ment was contemplated. Successive governors 
 
The Founding of Detroit 99 
 
 mismanaged its internal afFairs, demanding tolls 
 and fees so exorbitant that traders refused to come 
 there. Cadillac's demands had been for the ad- 
 vancement of the colony ; these men used their 
 power to enrich themselves. 
 
 In 1720 and 172 1, financial distress in France 
 sent many a ruined Frenchman to Detroit, so 
 that in 1722 the population was again two hun- 
 dred, as it had been at the time of its founder's 
 departure. For the next thirty years the story 
 of Detroit was uneventful. The settlement in- 
 creased gradually in numbers and strength. Of 
 its hardships we may best judge by the large 
 mortality of children in those years. By the 
 middle of the century we find the authorities in 
 Canada so eager to have the colonies on the Great 
 Lakes strong and permanent, that the following 
 inducements are offered in a proclamation 
 posted, by order of the governor-general, in all 
 the parishes of Canada : — 
 
 " Every man who will go to settle in Detroit 
 shall receive gratuitously, one spade, one axe, one 
 ploughshare, one large and one small wagon. 
 We will make an advance of other two tools to 
 be paid for in two years only. He will be given 
 a cow, . . . also a sow. Seed will be advanced 
 
loo The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 the first year, to be returned at the third harvest. 
 The women and children will be supported for 
 one year. Those will be deprived of the liber- 
 ality of the King who shall give themselves up 
 to trade in place of agriculture." 
 
 In this way men with families were encouraged 
 to make France strong in her western outposts. 
 Within a year one hundred persons responded, 
 and an official census shows a population at 
 Detroit of nearly five hundred persons, of whom 
 thirty-three were women over fifteen, and ninety- 
 five girls under that age. This represents no 
 mere floating population of traders and adven- 
 turers. The property returns of the inhabitants 
 show them to have been an agricultural people 
 who made the most of the rich land on which 
 they lived. In the census they reported one 
 hundred and sixty horses in place of the one of 
 forty years before, and six hundred and eighty- 
 two cattle. The fertility of the strait of Detroit 
 seemed to inspire even the roving Canadian, usu- 
 ally so restless and adventurous, with a desire to 
 plant and develop a home. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 NIAGARA AND THE LOSS OF CANADA 
 
 THE importance of Niagara in trade and 
 warfare was early recognized by both the 
 French and the English as well as by the 
 Iroquois. La Salle and Denonville, in their desire 
 to monopolize the Indian trade, had built fortified 
 storehouses on the shore of the river, but both 
 had been destroyed by the Iroquois. By the 
 beginning of the eighteenth century, the English 
 began to make serious inroads on the fur trade 
 of the interior, and the French became more 
 anxious than ever to secure a permanent foot- 
 hold at Niagara. For twenty-five years French 
 and English orators harangued at Indian councils, 
 begging for permission to build forts or trading 
 houses at that point; governors wrote home for 
 the necessary funds to purchase the Indians' 
 consent; and rival traders watched every camp 
 on the river with suspicion. At length French 
 diplomacy won the day. In 1720, Joncaire, with 
 
I02 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 the help of Charles Le Moyne, Chevalier de 
 Longueuil, gained from the Indians a reluctant 
 consent to the building of a bark house at Ni- 
 agara. He made the most of this permission, 
 and on the site of Lewiston built a large house, 
 forty feet wide and thirty long, which could 
 accommodate fifty traders. This he surrounded 
 with a high fence or palisade and named the 
 Magazin Royal. In their turn the English built 
 a similar, though smaller, house at Oswego 
 (172a), from which the Indians could go by 
 portage by the Oswego River to Lake Oneida, 
 and, gaining the Mohawk, could paddle their 
 fur-laden canoes to Albany. 
 
 In their first permission to the French, the 
 Iroquois had carefully stipulated that the house 
 to be built at Niagara should be of bark, for they 
 had learned the danger of stone forts. Now, Le 
 Moyne told them that he could not keep his 
 skins dry in a bark house, and wrung from them 
 an unwilling consent to the erection of a stone 
 house, provided it be " no stone fort." The 
 authorities at once wrote to the king, asking for 
 money to defray the expense of building a house 
 of solid masonry. De Lery, the king's chief 
 engineer, who had come out to fortify Quebec 
 
Niagara and the Loss of Canada 103 
 
 and Montreal, was directed to proceed to Ni- 
 agara, and to build this trading house. He 
 decided not to put it near Joncaire's station, 
 which was seven miles up the river, where the 
 rapids made further navigation impossible, but 
 to place it at the outlet of the river into Lake 
 Ontario. On the eastern bank of the Niagara, 
 near its mouth, he began the erection of the stone 
 structure which stands to-day as the oldest part 
 of the government buildings at Fort Niagara. It 
 took two summers in time and thirty thousand 
 livres in money to build. When completed, the 
 house of stone possessed four bastions erected 
 with a massiveness of construction that makes it 
 strong after nearly two hundred years have passed 
 away. Charles Le Moyne, who had gained the 
 Indians' consent to the building of this stone 
 house, was put in command and held it for many 
 years. The first Charles Le Moyne came to 
 Canada in 1654, and for a century his sons and 
 grandsons played most important parts in the 
 building up of the French power in the New 
 World. Two of his sons led the attack on 
 Schenectady, and later founded Louisiana ; a third 
 son fell in the defence of Quebec against Sir Will- 
 iam Phips in 1690, and another in the struggle 
 
I04 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 with the English for Hudson's Bay. The sec- 
 ond Charles Le Moyne accompanied La Barre 
 and Denonville on their expeditions against the 
 Iroquois, and the third estabUshed this fortified 
 post at Niagara. 
 
 In a hundred and forty years, more or less, the 
 French had made wonderful progress in opening 
 up the interior of North America to exploration 
 and trade ; they had founded settlements at the 
 extremities of their dominion on the St. Law- 
 rence and the lower Mississippi, and had con- 
 nected these by a chain of forts on the Great 
 Lakes and the northern tributaries of the Missis- 
 sippi ; but they had established only one strong 
 colony in the interior, the settlement at Detroit. 
 As the middle of the eighteenth century ap- 
 proached, they awoke to the need of making 
 good their claim to the Ohio Valley, building a 
 line of forts at Presque Isle on Lake Erie, Le 
 Bceuf, Venango, and Duquesne, on the route 
 from that lake to the Ohio River. They also 
 strengthened themselves by erecting a fort on the 
 southern shore of Lake Erie at Sandusky, about 
 halfway between Cleveland and Detroit. The 
 energy of the French was in part due to the ex- 
 hibition of an intention of the EngHsh to enter 
 
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Niagara and the Loss of Canada 105 
 
 the great interior basin ; but the French activity 
 aroused the English, and in 1754 the final con- 
 test for the control of the continent began in the 
 western wilderness of Virginia and Pennsylvania. 
 With the war elsewhere, this book has nothing 
 to do ; the campaigns for the capture of Du- 
 quesne, Louisbourg, Ticonderoga, Quebec, and 
 Montreal, all took place far away from the shores 
 of the Great Lakes ; but it was the success of the 
 English in these other 'fields that determined the 
 fate of the interior. From the beginning the im- 
 portance of Niagara had been recognized by both 
 combatants, but the strength of its position de- 
 ferred an attack upon it for several years. In 
 1758 the English captured Fort Frontenac, and 
 the next summer made a determined attack on 
 Niagara. 
 
 The fort at Niagara was now commanded by a 
 French officer and engineer. Captain Pouchot ; 
 he had strengthened and enlarged the fortifica- 
 tions and had a garrison of six hundred men well 
 supplied with food and ammunition. The Eng- 
 lish general, Prideaux, marched with a force of 
 twenty-three hundred men from Oswego and laid 
 siege to the fort. The English engineers opened 
 the trenches so near the fort that they were 
 
To6 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 obliged to withdraw and build a second series. 
 When the artillery was placed in position and 
 opened fire, one of the first shells to be dis- 
 charged burst prematurely, and a fragment strik- 
 ing General Prideaux on the head, killed him 
 instantly. Sir William Johnson took command 
 in his place and carried on the siege effectively. 
 
 In two or three weeks the French garrison was 
 reduced to the last extremity. The walls and 
 defences were riddled with shot and broken 
 through ; more than a hundred of the defenders 
 were killed or seriously wounded, and all were 
 worn out with the strain of the constant defence 
 day and night. Captain Pouchot still held out, 
 for ever since the siege began he had been watch- 
 ing for expected assistance from the western posts. 
 An army of thirteen hundred French and Indians 
 had been gathered from the stations of the Illinois 
 River and from Detroit, Michilimackinac, Le 
 Boeuf, and Venango, to defend the Ohio Valley. 
 As soon as Pouchot heard that the English were 
 coming to attack Niagara he had sent a summons 
 to the leaders of this force to come to his aid, and 
 now he was daily and hourly expecting their 
 arrival, together with the garrison of Fort Du- 
 quesne, which had abandoned that place on the 
 
Niagara and the Loss of Canada 107 
 
 approach of an English army under General 
 Forbes. 
 
 The western reenforcement was even now com- 
 ing up Lake Erie under the leadership of two 
 French generals. It was an oddly assorted force, 
 such as no other time or place could have pro- 
 duced. A company of well-drilled colonial miHtia 
 paddled their boats beside the canoes of a war- 
 party of Indians who had been induced by traders 
 to come from their distant homes to take part in 
 the white men's strife. Hardly less savage than 
 the Indian warriors were the western traders and 
 coureurs de bois, who had lived so long in Indian 
 wigwams that they had adopted the dress, the 
 war-paint, and the customs of their neighbors. 
 All the members of this mixed company were 
 alike, however, in one thing, — they were skilled 
 in the warfare of the woods. 
 
 From Lake Erie the fleet paddled past the site 
 of Buffalo and down the swift-moving Niagara 
 River around Grand Island, and, on the morn- 
 ing of July 24, 1759, ^^^ soldiers and Indians 
 landed at the head of the portage path, a mile 
 and a half above the falls. Here the French 
 found the ruins of their Fort of the Portage, of 
 Fort Little Niagara, a trading station which had 
 
io8 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 been fortified in 1750. Joncaire, a son of the 
 Joncaire who buUt the first trading house on the 
 river, had occupied this post till recently, but had 
 burned it at the approach of the British. The 
 army made its way up over the rough seven-mile 
 portage path and down over the rocks to the old 
 French trading house. From here they pro- 
 ceeded cautiously along the bank of the river. 
 
 Sir William Johnson had meanwhile been in- 
 formed by scouts of the approach of the expected 
 French reenforcement. He divided his twenty- 
 three hundred rnen into three bodies, — one to 
 guard the boats on Lake Ontario, one to hold 
 the trenches, and the third to cut off the advance 
 of the southern army. For this last company he 
 picked the provincial light infantry, two com- 
 panies of grenadiers, and a hundred and fifty men 
 of the Forty-sixth Regiment. They were com- 
 manded by Colonel Massey, under whose orders 
 they threw up, about a mile and a half up the 
 river from the fort, a rough breastwork of felled 
 trees behind which they could stand and pour shot 
 into the ranks of the advancing enemy. The 
 Iroquois warriors who had come with Johnson 
 were placed along the flanks of the English. 
 They had recently shown signs of disaffection, 
 
Niagara and the Loss of Canada 109 
 
 and when the French army came in sight they 
 opened a parley with the Indian allies of the 
 French. This did not last long, for they could 
 come to no agreement, and without further delay 
 the savages threw themselves into the fight with 
 wild war-whoops. 
 
 The French made a gallant fight, but were fa- 
 tally hampered by their unprotected position. For 
 half an hour they made sallies, retreating each time 
 after heavy losses, but led back for another assault 
 by those who survived of their heroic officers. 
 At last their ranks were completely broken, and 
 they fled along the shore to regain the portage 
 road around the falls and escape to their boats. 
 For five miles the English pursued them through 
 the woods, capturing and bringing back as many 
 as they could overtake. The bravery of the 
 French officers and the desperate efforts that 
 they made to check the retreat are shown by the 
 fact that nearly all of them were either killed or cap- 
 tured. Their followers hastened back to their boats 
 and retreated across Lake Erie, burning, on their 
 way, Presque Isle, Le Boeuf, and Venango, and 
 journeying to the safe and distant fort of Detroit. 
 
 On the morning of July 24th, Captain 
 Pouchot, shut up in the fort at Niagara, heard 
 
no The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 the sound of distant firing and began to watch 
 for his allies. Through the open spaces of the 
 forest, he could see in the far distance, moving 
 forms and groups of men meeting and parting. 
 The English had evidently gone out to attack 
 the advancing army ; the cannonading from the 
 trenches which had sounded for so long in the 
 ears of the garrison had ceased, and the trenches 
 seemed deserted. Captain Pouchot called for 
 volunteers to sally forth from the fort and de- 
 stroy the English works ; but as soon as they 
 appeared the English soldiers stationed there by 
 Johnson sprang up from their hiding places be- 
 hind the works and forced the French to retreat 
 into their fortification. 
 
 At last the sound of distant firing stopped and 
 the smoke of guns ceased to rise from the scene 
 of the conflict. The garrison waited hour after 
 hour in anxious suspense. About two o'clock in 
 the afternoon a friendly Indian slipped through 
 the lines and told of the utter rout of the relieving 
 force. Captain Pouchot refused to believe him, 
 but at four o'clock, after a sharp cannonade from 
 the English had been answered by a similar dis- 
 charge from the besieged garrison, a trumpet was 
 sounded in the English trenches, and an officer 
 
Niagara and the Loss of Canada iii 
 
 approached the fort with a demand for its sur- 
 render. He presented also a paper with the 
 names of the captive French officers. Captain 
 Pouchot still refused to admit to the enemy his 
 belief in the disaster, and sent an officer of his 
 own to see the prisoners. His worst fears were 
 confirmed when the officer returned with the 
 report that under a shelter of boughs near John- 
 son's tent were sixteen officers, some of them 
 severely wounded. 
 
 All hope for the French was gone, and Captain 
 Pouchot could only endeavor to arrange for his 
 garrison honorable terms of surrender. Such 
 terms the English, recognizing the gallant con- 
 duct of their enemies, were glad to grant. The 
 French were accorded all the honors of prisoners 
 of war, although they must be sent under guard 
 to New York. Pouchot asked and was granted 
 a special stipulation that they should be protected 
 from their Indian enemies, who might take this 
 occasion to revenge themselves for the massacre 
 at Fort William Henry three years before. He 
 signed the articles of surrender and delivered over 
 to the English the fort with ten officers and four 
 hundred and eighty-six men, besides women and 
 children. 
 
112 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 The surrenderor Niagara broke the line of com- 
 munication between Montreal and the interior. 
 In the next year, 1760, the Marquis de Vaudreuil 
 signed articles of capitulation by which Canada 
 and all its dependencies passed into the hands of 
 the English, and French supremacy on the Great 
 Lakes was ended. It remained only for the con- 
 querors to take possession of the other French 
 posts on the Great Lakes. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE CONSPIRACY OF PONTIAC 
 
 ON the thirteenth day of September, 1760, 
 five days after the surrender of Montreal, 
 Major Robert Rogers, the most energetic 
 Indian fighter of the time, set out from Montreal 
 with two hundred of his "Rangers," whose ex- 
 ploits in war had made his name famous, for the 
 lakes. He was to take possession of Detroit and 
 the other lake forts for England. Reaching Niag- 
 ara on the first day of October, they crossed by por- 
 tage to the site of the modern Buffalo and skirted 
 the southern shore of Lake Erie, encamping 
 nightly on its margin and taking every precaution 
 by day to keep the boats from losing sight of one 
 another on the rough, stormy waters. One night 
 on the Cuyahoga River, near where the present 
 city of Cleveland now stands, a party of Indians 
 entered the camp and announced themselves to 
 be ambassadors from Pontiac, " the king and lord 
 I 113 
 
114 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 of that country," who requested them to halt 
 until he himself should arrive. In a few hours 
 the great sachem stalked into camp. He was of 
 medium height, with an active, muscular figure, 
 and a stern face. His first words were an im- 
 perious demand as to Major Rogers' business. 
 " How dare you," said he, " enter my country 
 without my leave ? " "I do not come with 
 any design against you or your people," replied 
 Rogers, " but to remove out of your country the 
 French, who have been an obstacle in our way 
 to mutual peace and commerce." The Indian 
 who greeted Rogers so haughtily was the prin- 
 cipal chief of the Ottawa and Ojibway tribes, 
 a man to whom all the nations of the Illinois 
 country deferred and whose name was held in 
 respect even by the distant Algonquins of the 
 St. Lawrence. Rogers told him of his present 
 mission, taking occasion to dwell on the total 
 defeat of the French in Canada, and gave him 
 several belts of wampum in token of his friendly 
 intent. These Pontiac accepted with dignity, but 
 without any sign of unbending. He announced 
 that he stood in the path the English travelled in 
 until the next morning, and proffered a string of 
 wampum to intimate that they must not march 
 
The Conspiracy of Pontiac 115 
 
 farther without his leave. He inquired whether 
 the party was in need of anything he or his 
 warriors could supply, and then withdrew. 
 
 The EngHsh kept a double force on guard all 
 night, but in the morning Pontiac came with his 
 attendant chiefs and declared that he had made 
 peace with Rogers and his detachment, and that 
 they might therefore pass through his country 
 unmolested and expel the French garrison from 
 Detroit. He was inclined, he said, to live peace- 
 ably with the English while they used him as he 
 deserved, but if they treated him with neglect, he 
 should shut up the way and exclude them from his 
 domains. The pipe of peace was passed around 
 the council fire and smoked by officers and chiefs 
 ahke. 
 
 As Rogers and his men proceeded on their 
 way, they found the march made easy by the 
 powerful influence of Pontiac, who dissuaded a 
 war-party of Detroit Indians from attacking 
 them, furnished guides and welcome supplies of 
 venison, turkeys, and parched corn. He even 
 sent word ahead to the Indians within the limits 
 of the fort that he was a friend of the English, 
 making it impossible for the French commander 
 to get any help from them. In the role of 
 
ii6 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 guide, counsellor, and patronizing friend of the 
 newly arrived strangers, this remarkable savage 
 comes for the first time into prominence in 
 history. Three years later he was to make of 
 what would have been without his leadership a 
 series of spasmodic and scattering raids a formi- 
 dable and sustained Indian uprising of the most 
 serious kind. 
 
 Rogers took Detroit, sent the French com- 
 mander and his garrison down to Niagara, dis- 
 armed the Canadian militia, and received the oath 
 of allegiance from all the inhabitants ; and in a 
 few hours Detroit was, in name at least, an Eng- 
 lish town. Within a year all the posts on the 
 Jakes came into English possession ; but the 
 English were far from gaining the hearty support 
 of either the French-Canadian inhabitants, — 
 who were naturally not pleased at this change of 
 hands, — or even of the Indian tribes, who liked 
 the French. 
 
 The French had always had unusual success in 
 dealing with the Indians. They were friendly 
 with them, tolerant of their presence, and generous 
 with their gifts, without any insulting show of 
 patronage. The previous reputation of the Eng- 
 lish was bad among the Indians. They resented 
 
The Conspiracy of Pontiac 117 
 
 their austere manners, their steady seizure of 
 forest lands for agriculture, and their ill-concealed 
 contempt for the red man. This bad name had 
 been somewhat obscured in these recent years by 
 the excellent prices paid by the English for furs, 
 and their lavish gifts to gain Indian support ; but 
 it was now confirmed at every post along the 
 whole frontier. 
 
 When the two rival nations were using the 
 Indians as allies, both had treated them with 
 respect and endeavored to gain their friendship. 
 Now the Indians began to realize that this friend- 
 ship was no longer considered valuable, but that 
 the English were insolently seizing more and 
 more of their domain with the apparent intention 
 of driving them out. Their chiefs were no longer 
 treated with respect as they hung about the white 
 men's forts. Owing to a sudden policy of re- 
 trenchment the gifts, too, were cut down or with- 
 held altogether, until the savages really suffered 
 from want of supplies which the wise Frenchmen 
 had seen the necessity of providing for them. 
 The customary amount of powder was denied 
 them, and the Indians feared lest their indepen- 
 dence was threatened. The English fur trade was 
 in lawless hands, and the traders abused and out- 
 
Ii8 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 raged the Indians while they cheated them out of 
 their lawful dues. The discontent of the natives 
 was encouraged and fostered by the French traders 
 and settlers, who told their sullen audiences in- 
 credible tales of the further evil purposes of the 
 English, and spread far and wide a rumor that 
 the armies of the French were even now advanc- 
 ing up the St. Lawrence and Mississippi rivers to 
 drive out these pretenders. 
 
 Suddenly, in May, 1763, the Indians uprose. 
 With characteristic secrecy and stealth the tribes 
 had exchanged wampum belts, spreading the sum- 
 mons to war and signifying in return acquiescence 
 in the plan, with hardly a suspicion on the part 
 of their indifferent English neighbors. Occa- 
 sionally in the last month a story was brought in 
 that roused the anxiety of those who were wise 
 in the ways of the Indians, but these were laughed 
 to scorn. Looking backward, one marvels both 
 at the secrecy with which the uprising was planned, 
 and at the serene confidence of the scanty garri- 
 sons stationed at these isolated and dangerous out- 
 posts. From contemporary accounts it appears 
 that at Presque Isle there were twenty-seven 
 men ; at Michilimackinac thirty-five men with 
 their officers ; at the foot of Lake Michigan, on 
 
The Conspiracy of Pontiac 119 
 
 the St. Joseph's River, fifteen, and at Fort Miami 
 ten, while the other posts were held by mere 
 handfuls of soldiers ; Detroit was the only station 
 that was suitably manned. 
 
 In their dealings with white men, the Indians 
 had never before been banded together under a 
 single leader. The tribes were restless and jeal- 
 ous of one another, but Pontiac restrained and 
 humored them. He made his plans so well, and 
 they were carried out so secretly and energetically, 
 that within ten weeks of the time when the first 
 blow was struck, not a single post remained in 
 British hands west of Niagara, save only the fort 
 of Detroit, where he himself conducted the siege 
 in person. 
 
 The garrison at Detroit was commanded by 
 Major Gladwin, a young British officer, who had 
 taken an active part in the war with the French, 
 and had been at Detroit for nearly a year. He 
 had eight officers and one hundred and twenty 
 men in his command ; and besides the Canadian 
 residents, whose white cottages lined either bank 
 of the river, there were about forty fur traders at 
 the settlement. The original stockade had been 
 several times enlarged since Cadillac's day, once 
 recently during the three years of English occupa- 
 
I20 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 tion. It contained about a hundred small houses, 
 a well-built group of barracks, a council house, 
 and a church. Three rows of pickets, twenty-five 
 feet high, with large gateways surmounted by 
 blockhouses for observation and defence, had 
 taken the place of the original twelve-foot fence. 
 Within each gateway, which was closed at sunset, 
 was a small wicket, through which one person 
 could enter at a time. This was kept open until 
 nine o'clock. The fort was protected by three 
 small cannon, one carrying three-pound balls, 
 the other two six-pounders; but these guns were 
 badly mounted and better calculated to terrify the 
 Indians than to render much actual assistance. 
 Far more effective were the two small vessels, 
 the Beaver and the Gladwin, which lay anchored 
 in the stream. 
 
 At a council on the 27th of April, 1763, Pon- 
 tiac inflamed the minds of his hearers by reporting 
 a vision vouchsafed to him by the Great Spirit, 
 who asked him why the Indians suffered these 
 English, — " these dogs dressed in red," — to 
 dwell among them. The first step of his plan, 
 as he unfolded it to his warriors, was to spy out 
 the land. On May-day, 1760, -forty men of the 
 Ottawa tribe, purporting to have returned from 
 
The Conspiracy of Pontiac 121 
 
 their winter hunting-grounds, went to the fort and 
 asked permission to dance the calumet dance be- 
 fore the English officers. They were admitted, 
 and while thirty of them danced, the remaining 
 ten strolled about and noted every detail of the 
 defence, all retiring at the close without rousing 
 any suspicion in the minds of their hosts. 
 
 Four days later one of the leading French set- 
 tlers brought in word that his wife, while pur- 
 chasing supplies in the Ottawa village, had found 
 the warriors filing off the ends of their gun-bar- 
 rels so as to make them only about a yard long, 
 probably with some treacherous intent of conceal- 
 ing them more easily. The next day Major 
 Gladwin was informed of the plot for the destruc- 
 tion of his garrison on the' morrow. Two stories 
 are told of the source of this information, — one 
 that an Indian girl to' whom he had been kind 
 made it known to him, and another that a friendly 
 young warrior told him. We would like to be- 
 lieve the former, which tells of the reluctance of 
 the beautiful girl to depart after she had done her 
 errand of delivering a pair of embroidered mocca- 
 sins ordered by Major Gladwin, and of her con- 
 fession to him, when he pressed her for the 
 reason of her sad manner, that danger threatened 
 
122 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 him and his men. Gladwin hardly beHeved the 
 story, but made all preparations to thwart the 
 plans of Pontiac if occasion oiFered. 
 
 The next morning the guards in the block- 
 house saw Pontiac and sixty men land from their 
 canoes and walk in Indian file up the river road 
 towards the gateway of the stockade. They were 
 admitted and escorted to the council chamber, 
 where Major Gladwin and his principal officers 
 were awaiting them. It is said that even the iron 
 composure of Pontiac was shaken and that he 
 gave a momentary start when he saw drawn up 
 on either side of the gateway and standing about 
 in watchful groups in the streets the armed sol- 
 diers of the garrison. The officers, too, were in 
 full uniform with their swords at their sides and 
 a brace of pistols in their belts. Before he was 
 seated Pontiac asked, " Why do I see so many of 
 my father's young men standing in the street with 
 their guns ?" " To keep them in good discipline 
 and exercise them," replied Major Gladwin, 
 through his interpreter. 
 
 When the Indians were seated on the skins 
 prepared for them, Pontiac began his address. 
 Holding in his hand the wampum belt which had 
 been agreed upon as the signal for attack, he 
 
The Conspiracy of Pontiac 123 
 
 spoke of the friendship of the Indians for the 
 EngHsh. Once, it is said, he raised it as if to 
 give the signal, but Gladwin signed with his hand 
 and the soldiers without the open door made a 
 clattering with their arms. Pontiac trembled and 
 gave the belt in the usual way instead of in the 
 manner agreed upon in the council. 
 
 Gladwin replied that the Indians should have 
 the friendship of the English just so long as they 
 kept the peace, but not one moment longer. 
 Some writers say that he drew aside the blanket 
 of the chief nearest to him and showed hidden 
 in its folds a shortened gun. At any rate, the 
 English found out that every chief was armed, 
 and knew that they had narrowly escaped a 
 frightful massacre. The Indians were awed by 
 the sharp rebuke of Gladwin into departing 
 quietly. For two days they attempted to parley 
 with the English and gain admittance by deceit ; 
 but Gladwin was firm that not more than sixty 
 might enter the fort at one time, and on the 9th 
 of May Pontiac threw aside his mask of pre- 
 tended friendship. Hostilities were begun by the 
 Indians murdering an old English sergeant who 
 lived on a neighboring island. 
 
 The Indians moved their camp to the same 
 
124 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 side of the river as the fort, establishing them- 
 selves just above the line of the French houses. 
 One more attempt was made for peace, when two 
 brave English officers. Captain Campbell and 
 Lieutenant McDougall, insisted upon risking 
 their lives in the Indian camp to see if they could 
 persuade the savages to desist from war. Both 
 were detained by the Indians in spite of the pre- 
 vious promises of Pontiac. Lieutenant Mc- 
 Dougall later made his escape, but Captain 
 Campbell was murdered by the natives in an out- 
 burst of anger. The blockade of Detroit was 
 begun, and many months were to pass before a 
 white man could venture in daylight to step 
 outside the little wicket or to show his head at a 
 port-hole or window without fear of Indian bullets. 
 For weeks every one from Major Gladwin down 
 to the lowest soldier was on the watch night and 
 day, no man lying down to sleep except in his 
 clothes and with his gun beside him. The garri- 
 son began to suffer for food and would have been 
 forced to withdraw from the fort and escape down 
 the lake, had not a few friendly Canadians smug- 
 gled in supplies. The Indians, too, whose method 
 of warfare is that of sudden attack rather than of 
 protracted siege, had not sufficient food, but 
 
The Conspiracy of Pontiac 125 
 
 began to make raids on the Canadian families, 
 who, though taking no part in the struggle, were 
 in general indifferent to the English. At a time 
 like this the remarkable gifts of Pontiac came out. 
 With a foresight and method most unusual in a 
 savage he established a base of supplies, under- 
 took a systematic levy on those who had provi- 
 sions, and gave out a regular amount each day to 
 every Indian. 
 
 On the 29th of May, after the blockade had 
 been going on for three weeks, the long-expected 
 boats from Niagara, which had been summoned 
 by Major Gladwin in the first days of the siege, 
 were seen rounding the wooded point below the 
 fort, the red flag of England flying at their sterns. 
 All was rejoicing within the fort until, as the 
 boats came nearer, the English saw that they were 
 occupied and guided by Indians. Three English- 
 men who escaped to the fort brought a mournful 
 tale of a night attack and seizure of the boats at 
 the mouth of the Detroit River, and also of the 
 destruction of Sandusky and Presque Isle. This 
 was the first of many reports that were to come 
 during that month of similar successful attacks, 
 until the little garrison at Detroit was the only 
 one left on the upper lakes. The remaining 
 
126 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 Englishmen of the rescuing party were massacred 
 that night in the Indian camp. 
 
 Towards the end of June Pontiac sent another 
 summons to surrender, saying that nine hundred 
 Indians from the north were on their way to join 
 him. Major Gladwin refused to consider terms 
 till Captain Campbell and Lieutenant McDougall 
 were returned to him, and once more hostilities 
 were resumed. On the 30th of June the Gladwin, 
 which about the middle of May had eluded the 
 Indians and slipped down the river to Niagara, 
 succeeded in making her way up the river and land- 
 ing at the fort a force of fifty men, together with 
 much-needed provisions and ammunition. She 
 brought the news that peace had been formally 
 concluded between England and France. While 
 many of the French-Canadians refused to admit 
 the truth of this report and continued to romance 
 to the Indians about large French armies that 
 were approaching, forty settlers accepted their new 
 position as English subjects and took service under 
 Gladwin. Through them the English officers were 
 kept even better informed of what went on with- 
 out the fort than before, but always throughout 
 the blockade there seem to have been daily 
 reports from some source of what happened in 
 
The Conspiracy of Pontiac 127 
 
 the Indian camp, as well as frequent sorties from 
 the fort. 
 
 During the month of July the efforts of the 
 Indians were directed particularly against the two 
 armed vessels, which had not only afforded de- 
 fence to the fort and brought men and supplies, 
 but had begun to make trips up the river to a 
 point opposite the Indian camp, from which they 
 could pour shot into the wigwams. One night 
 the attention of the watchful sentries was attracted 
 by a mass of flames shooting up into the sky 
 in the general direction of the Indian camp. 
 Their first thought was that the village was on 
 fire, but the mass of flame seemed to be moving 
 and to come nearer. A huge fire-float, made of 
 four bateaux^ filled with fagots, birch bark, and 
 tar, appeared on the water, drifting down to set 
 fire to the schooners anchored opposite the fort. 
 The vessels were anchored by two cables, and as 
 the blazing raft approached, they slipped one 
 cable and swung to the other side of the river 
 while the raft fioated harmlessly by, lighting up 
 the fort and the dark shores till it burned itself 
 down to the water's edge. 
 
 1 Bateau, the French word for boat, usually applied to a flat-bottomed boat 
 with pointed ends. 
 
128 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 The next event of the blockade came at the 
 end of that month. On the 29th of July the 
 garrison heard firing down the river. They waited 
 anxiously, wondering what new disaster was to 
 fall upon them, for similar sounds had often been 
 followed by the arrival of a single survivor from 
 some abandoned fort with a tale of Indian butch- 
 ery. Half an hour later the sentries called to 
 their officers to come quickly, for the whole sur- 
 face of the water was covered with boats. In 
 breathless suspense the weary garrison waited to 
 see if the story of two months before was to be 
 repeated and dusky forms were to appear crouch- 
 ing in captured English vessels ; but they were re- 
 assured by the salute of an English gun. In an 
 hour two hundred and sixty men had landed 
 at the little wharf and been welcomed with cheers 
 and shouts. Captain Dalyell had been sent from 
 Niagara with companies from two regiments and 
 with twenty of Rogers' Rangers, commanded by 
 Major Rogers himself, to put an end to the siege. 
 
 The newcomers were eager to sally forth and 
 meet the Indians. Gladwin, who had been made 
 wary by long months of experience with Pontiac, 
 strenuously opposed Dalyell's plan of a night 
 attack, and only gave his consent when the latter 
 
The Conspiracy of Pontiac 129 
 
 threatened to leave Detroit unless some such bold 
 stroke was permitted. About two o'clock in the 
 morning, on the thirty-first day of July, two hun- 
 dred and fifty men marched in three detachments 
 up the bank of the river, past the French cottages, 
 to a little stream a mile and a half above the fort. 
 Treacherous Canadians, who had in some way 
 learned of the plan, had warned the Indians, and 
 as the advance guard passed across the bridge 
 which spanned the stream, the Indians dashed 
 down from the heights above and poured volleys 
 of musketry into the English ranks. The sol- 
 diers recoiled for a moment; then they pushed on 
 over the bridge, but the savages vanished yelling 
 into the darkness beyond. For a time the Eng- 
 lish pressed on, shot at from every side ; but flesh 
 and blood could not stand against this invisible 
 enemy. The remaining troops endeavored to 
 retreat in orderly fashion, but were soon under 
 heavy fire again from a rear ambuscade of Indians. 
 Major Rogers gained entrance to a house on the 
 road and from its windows commanded the road 
 with his guns and covered the retreat. The two 
 bateaux which had followed the party up the 
 river were loaded with the dead and wounded. 
 Slowly the English made their way back under 
 
130 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 constant fire, and by eight o'clock the survivors 
 gained the shelter of the fort. Of the two hun- 
 dred and fifty who had gone out six hours before, 
 one hundred and fifty-nine had been killed or 
 wounded, and Captain Dalyell himself had lost 
 his Hfe. The victory of Bloody Run, as the 
 stream was ever afterwards called, restored the 
 confidence of Pontiac and brought many acces- 
 sions to his side; but in spite of this disaster 
 Major Gladwin, with his reenforced garrison of 
 over two hundred able-bodied men, was confident 
 of ultimate success. 
 
 The schooner Gladwin made her way again 
 to Niagara and returned early in September with 
 a welcome load of forty-seven barrels of flour and 
 one hundred barrels of pork, but with a tale of 
 Indian attack and the loss of six of her crew of 
 twelve. Other attempts from Niagara to relieve 
 the garrison were unsuccessful, but Pontiac re- 
 ceived in October a heavy blow in a letter from 
 the French commander at Fort Chartres in the 
 Illinois country, saying that not only could he 
 offer Pontiac no help but he was now at peace 
 with the English and wished the Indians to follow 
 his example. This message had its effect. Pon- 
 tiac had had great hopes of French assistance. 
 
The Conspiracy of Pontiac 131 
 
 With these hopes dashed he knew he could not 
 hold out much longer ; already his warriors were 
 wearying of the attack and deserting him. He 
 sent a letter to Gladwin asking for peace and 
 agreeing to forget the "bad things that had hap- 
 pened," if the Englishman would do the same. 
 Gladwin replied that he would grant a truce while 
 he sent Pontiac's message to his general, who 
 alone had power to grant pardon. 
 
 As it was then late in the season, it was deemed 
 best to leave matters in this condition until spring, 
 as it held the Indians in a wholesome state of un- 
 certainty. Within a few days the encampments 
 in the vicinity of Detroit were abandoned. After 
 a confinement of five long months the inhabitants 
 of the town could venture outside the stockade 
 without dread of Indian bullets. 
 
 A report was sent to General Amherst, the 
 commander of the British army, and during the 
 winter plans were made to relieve Detroit and 
 bring peace to the lake region. A military expe- 
 dition was to be sent in the spring to force the 
 tribes into submission ; and in the meantime 
 Sir William Johnson, the superintendent of In- 
 dian affairs, despatched messages to all the tribes, 
 warning them of the coming expedition and 
 
132 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 urging those who were ready to make peace to 
 come, while there was yet time, to a grand council 
 fire at Niagara. 
 
 From the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi, 
 from Lake Superior and eastern New York, the 
 friendly tribes came up in July to Niagara. When 
 Johnson stepped ashore from the boat which 
 brought him from Oswego, he saw dotting the 
 fields the wigwams of more than a thousand 
 Indians, and in a few days the number was 
 doubled. Councils were held at which the rep- 
 resentatives of the tribes promised their friend- 
 ship to the English, agreed to restore the forts, 
 to cede lands, and in so far as their own nations 
 were concerned to guarantee safe navigation on 
 the lakes. This convention was the most remark- 
 able assemblage of Indians that had ever gathered 
 on the shores of the Great Lakes. 
 
 While the council was in progress Colonel 
 Bradstreet arrived at Niagara with his troops, 
 and when it was over he proceeded up Lake Erie 
 to Detroit, for Pontiac and his tribes had not 
 come to the conference, and Detroit was still in 
 danger. During the winter the Indians had left 
 the town in peace, but in the spring warriors had 
 returned to encamp on the strait and had made 
 
The Conspiracy of Pontiac 133 
 
 occasional attacks. In August, 1764, fifteen 
 months from the time when Pontiac and his sixty 
 chiefs sat in Gladwin's council chamber, the 
 English army under General Bradstreet came to 
 relieve the weary garrison. Pontiac sent a mes- 
 sage of defiance to the English chief, but he sent 
 it from the safe distance of a village on the 
 Maumee River, forty or fifty miles away, in what 
 is now the state of Ohio. 
 
 Fresh troops were put in place of the worn- 
 out veterans of the siege ; such Indians as re- 
 mained in the vicinity came in and offered their 
 allegiance to the English ; and Gladwin, weary of 
 fighting the Indians, started down Lake Erie on his 
 way to England. Now that his defence of Detroit 
 was honorably ended, he was glad to resign his 
 commission. Lesser posts had fallen, but Detroit 
 had been saved, and with it the upper lakes. 
 
 Pontiac spent the next two years among the 
 western tribes of the Illinois region. In the sum- 
 mer of 1766 he went to Oswego, and as official 
 representative of the tribes of the West offered 
 to Sir William Johnson his friendship and theirs. 
 His conspiracy had failed and he returned sadly 
 to his home in the Illinois villages. For two 
 years little is known of him, but in April, 1769, 
 
134 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 his name became once more the watchword of 
 bloodshed and slaughter. From tribe to tribe 
 runners carried the news that he had been mur- 
 dered in an Indian village, and the nations rose in 
 their wrath to avenge the death of their great 
 chieftain. The Illinois nation, to which the assas- 
 sin belonged, was almost wiped out, and internal 
 feuds sprang up between the tribes till all the 
 Indians of the southern lake region were involved, 
 and the death of Pontiac was avenged among his 
 people by a period of universal tribal war. 
 
 Chronology of the Ending of French Rule 
 
 1759. Capture of Quebec and Niagara. 
 
 1760. Capture of Montreal and surrender of Canada. 
 Taking possession of Detroit. 
 
 1763. Pontiac' s attack, and the fall of the other posts of the 
 
 western lakes. 
 Treaty of Peace. 
 
 1764. Sir William Johnson's conference at Niagara. 
 Bradstreet's expedition up Lake Erie, and the close of 
 
 the blockade of Detroit. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE ADVENTURES OF A TRADER 
 
 A FUR TRADER by the name of Alex- 
 ander Henry was the first Englishman 
 to reach Mackinac after the fall of New 
 France. His story of his adventures gives a 
 graphic picture of the course of events on the 
 upper lakes during the years when the siege of 
 Detroit and the Indian uprising under Pontiac 
 left the northern forts isolated and unprotected. 
 Henry reached Fort Mackinac in September, 
 176 1. For the latter part of his journey from 
 Montreal he had adopted the disguise of a French 
 trader, for the Indians stopped every party to 
 inquire whether any Englishman was coming to 
 the lakes. As soon as his nationality became 
 known at Mackinac he was warned by the Cana- 
 dians that he should lose no time in making his 
 escape to Detroit, as the Indians would not tol- 
 erate the presence of an Englishman. Henry 
 suspected that the Canadians had fostered this 
 
 13s 
 
136 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 spirit to retain control of the fur trade, and were 
 exaggerating the dangers of his position in the 
 hope of frightening him away. Still, it did not 
 add to his comfort to hear that a party of Indians 
 was coming to pay him a visit. As he sat in his 
 house one afternoon the door opened and an 
 Indian chief, six feet tall, walked quietly in. Be- 
 hind him were sixty more, each with a tomahawk 
 in one hand and a scalping knife in the other. 
 In absolute silence they stalked into the room in 
 single file, seated themselves, at a sign from their 
 leader, on the floor, and began to smoke their 
 pipes. In the long pause that followed Henry 
 had time to study his formidable visitors. Their 
 faces were painted with charcoal mixed with grease, 
 and their bodies, bare to the waist, were decorated 
 with white clay plastered on in various patterns. 
 Some had feathers thrust through their noses ; 
 others had them stuck into their hair. Unless 
 their purpose was friendly these warriors would 
 not be safe guests for a single trader to entertain. 
 After a long time the chief began to address him. 
 He told him that because of his bravery in ven- 
 turing into this country alone he might stay 
 among them, in spite of his being an English- 
 man, the hated enemy of their father, the king of 
 
The Adventures of a Trader 137 
 
 France. The august assembly ended with a 
 request that the young men be allowed to taste 
 his " English milk," meaning rum, and the trader 
 was assured of his safety at Mackinac. 
 
 That week a detachment of English troops 
 arrived from the lower lakes, and the trader's 
 protection was ensured. Henry fitted out expedi- 
 tions to go into the interior to buy furs of the 
 more remote Indian tribes, and prepared to spend 
 the winter at the fort. During these months at 
 Mackinac and the succeeding winter which he 
 spent at Sault Ste. Marie he was much interested 
 in the fisheries. In both these straits the white- 
 fish were very abundant. At Sault Ste. Marie in 
 the late autumn there was such a run of fish that 
 two men would go out in a canoe, one paddling 
 and the other handling a scoop-net on the end of 
 a ten-foot pole, and would return in two hours 
 with a catch of five hundred whitefish, each 
 weighing from six to fifteen pounds. The steers- 
 man would guide the canoe in and out between 
 the sharp rocks and rushing rapids ; the fisher- 
 man would dip his net and throw in a pile of fish ; 
 and before long the canoe would be loaded down 
 to the water's edge. During the winter the fish 
 were cured by drying them in smoke, and packed 
 
138 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 for transportation to the nearest frontier posts, 
 and even for the markets of the St. Lawrence. 
 
 In May, 1763, when Henry returned to 
 Mackinac, he found that the traders, who were 
 gathering there, brought rumors of Indian hostility. 
 These reports were disregarded by the officers of 
 the garrison, who with their force of soldiers and 
 their fort could not believe there was any cause 
 for alarm. Henry himself received a warning. 
 The year before, he had won the friendship of 
 one of the Chippewa Indians, named Wawatam, 
 who had surprised him one day by bringing his 
 whole family to the trader's house, offering a 
 present of skins, sugar, and dried meat, and de- 
 claring his wish of adopting him into his family 
 as a brother. Henry had accepted the honor and 
 thought no more of the incident until now, in the 
 spring of 1763, his Indian brother came to his 
 house in a very sober mood, and begged him to 
 go back to the Sault the next morning with him- 
 self and his family. He further inquired whether 
 the commandant of the fort had not heard bad 
 news, saying that he himself had been frequently 
 disturbed by "the noise of evil birds." He 
 hinted that there were many more Indians about 
 the fort than the English had seen. Henry paid 
 
The Adventures of a Trader 139 
 
 little attention to the Indian's words, but the 
 next morning he returned with his wife and once 
 more entreated the trader to go with him. Henry 
 was not sufficiently familiar with the Chippewa 
 language to follow all his figurative and elaborate 
 speech, and unfortunately turned a deaf ear to his 
 plea. After long effort the chief went sadly away. 
 He had warned Henry that all the Indians were 
 coming in a body one day soon to demand liquor 
 of the commandant, and that before they became 
 intoxicated he had better be gone. Henry kept 
 careful watch, but except that a great many 
 Indians came in the next day to purchase toma- 
 hawks, he saw nothing unusual. The next day, 
 the 4th of June, was the king's birthday, and 
 from this time on we will let Henry tell his own 
 story. 
 
 "The morning was sultry. A Chippewa came 
 to tell me that his nation was going to play at 
 baggatiway (called by the Canadians " la crosse ") 
 with the Sacs, another Indian nation. He invited 
 me to witness the sport, adding that the comman- 
 dant was to be there, and would bet on the side of 
 the Chippewas. In consequence of this informa- 
 tion, I went to the commandant and expostulated 
 with him a little, representing that the Indians 
 
140 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 might possibly have some sinister end in view ; 
 but he only smiled at my suspicions. 
 
 " I did not go myself to see the match, which 
 was now to be played without the fort, because, 
 there being a canoe prepared to depart on the 
 following day for Montreal, I employed myself 
 in writing letters to my friends ; and even when a 
 fellow-trader, Mr. Tracy, happened to call upon 
 me, saying that another canoe had just arrived 
 from Detroit, and proposing that I should go 
 with him to the beach to inquire the news, it so 
 happened that I still remained to finish my 
 letters, promising to follow Mr. Tracy in the 
 course of a few minutes. Mr. Tracy had not 
 gone more than twenty paces from my door, 
 when I heard an Indian war-cry, and a noise 
 of general confusion. 
 
 " Going instantly to my window, I saw a crowd 
 of Indians, within the fort, furiously cutting down 
 and scalping every Englishman they found. I 
 had, in the room in which I was, a fowling-piece, 
 loaded with shot. This I immediately seized, 
 and held it for a few minutes, waiting to hear the 
 drum beat to arms. In this dreadful interval, I 
 saw several of my countrymen fall." 
 
 At length, realizing that there was no hope of 
 
The Adventures of a Trader 141 
 
 a call to arms, and that one person could do 
 nothing against four hundred Indians, Henry 
 decided to seek shelter for himself. He saw that 
 many of the Canadian inhabitants of the fort were 
 calmly looking on, neither helping nor hindering 
 the Indians, and conceived the hope that he 
 might be safe in one of their houses. He climbed 
 the low fence that separated his house from that 
 of Mr. Langlade, his next neighbor, and found 
 the whole family at the windows, gazing at the 
 scene of blood before them. Henry begged Mr. 
 Langlade to put him in some place of safety, but 
 he paid no attention. " This," says Henry, " was 
 a moment for despair; but the next an Indian 
 woman, a slave of Mr. Langlade's, beckoned to 
 me to follow her. She brought me to a door, 
 which she opened, desiring me to enter, and tell- 
 ing me that it led to the garret, where I must go 
 and conceal myself." The woman locked the 
 door after him, and from his hiding-place he 
 looked out on the horrible scenes that were pass- 
 ing without. Soon every one who could be 
 found had been massacred, and there was a gen- 
 eral cry, " All is finished." At the same instant 
 Indians entered the house and asked Mr. Lang- 
 lade whether there were any Englishmen in the 
 
142 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 house. The Canadian repHed that he did not 
 know of any, — for the Indian woman had kept 
 her secret, — but that they might hunt for them- 
 selves. They were delayed in their search by a 
 hunt for the key of the garret door, and in those 
 few moments Henry hid himself under a pile of 
 birchbark vessels. Four Indians came up with 
 Mr. Langlade, walked round the dark garret so 
 near to the fugitive that they might have touched 
 him, told how many they had killed and how 
 many scalps they had taken, and went off again, 
 locking the door after them. 
 
 Exhausted by suspense Henry fell asleep, and 
 was awakened in the evening by Mrs. Langlade, 
 who came up to the garret and was much sur- 
 prised to find him there. She gave him a little 
 water to drink and told him she hoped he would 
 escape. The next morning the Indians returned, 
 and discovered the trader's hiding-place. An 
 Indian walked into the garret and seized him 
 with one hand by the collar of his coat, while 
 in the other he brandished a large carving-knife 
 as if he meant to plunge it into him. For some 
 seconds the Indian looked into Henry's eyes, and 
 then dropped his arm, saying, " I won't kill 
 you!" He added that he had once lost a brother. 
 
The Adventures of a Trader 143 
 
 and that he would call his prisoner after him. 
 He was going to take him to his cabin, but 
 Henry begged Mr. Langlade to request that he 
 be allowed to stay in the garret, as the Indians 
 were so intoxicated that no Englishman would be 
 safe among them. Once more the trader settled 
 himself in the garret to await his fate, but in an 
 hour an Indian came, purporting to be from his 
 new master, and led him outside the fort among 
 the bushes, where he tried to murder him. 
 Henry managed to escape and ran with all speed 
 to the fort, where he found his master, who gave 
 him protection. The next morning three other 
 Englishmen who had escaped massacre were 
 brought to Mr. Langlade's house. From them 
 Henry learned that the game of " la crosse " had 
 been a device to get as many Englishmen as 
 possible outside the walls. It had been agreed 
 that a ball should be tossed as if by accident over 
 the pickets of the fort, and that it should be 
 instantly followed by all engaged in the game. 
 When a sufficient number were inside they could 
 seize the fort. Twenty Englishmen had sur- 
 vived the massacre. They consulted together 
 to see whether there was any hope of their regain- 
 ing possession of the station, but were forced to 
 
144 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 decide that without the help of the Canadian 
 inhabitants, who could not be counted upon, it 
 was impossible. 
 
 The next day the prisoners went through a 
 strange experience. They were put into canoes 
 and told that they were to be taken to the Castor 
 Islands in Lake Michigan, but a thick fog came 
 up and their guards thought it safer to keep near 
 shore and paddled towards an Ottawa village. 
 Every half hour the Indians gave their war- 
 whoops, one for every prisoner in the canoe, in 
 order to notify all other Indians of the number 
 of prisoners they were taking. At the Ottawa 
 village they were greeted by an Ottawa chief, who 
 made signs to them to land. When they came 
 within a few hundred yards of the shore warriors 
 rushed into the water, dragged the prisoners from 
 the canoes, and carried them ashore. The Eng- 
 lish thought that their last moments had come, 
 but the Ottawas hastened to assure them that they 
 were their friends. The Ottawas were indignant 
 because they had not been consulted by the 
 Chippewas about destroying the English. There- 
 fore they had rescued the prisoners from the 
 Chippewas, who were taking them to the Castor 
 Islands to kill them. Before long the bewildered 
 
The Adventures of a Trader 145 
 
 prisoners were returning to Mackinac in the 
 canoes of the Ottawas, and were marched by their 
 new masters into the midst of the astonished 
 Chippewas. 
 
 While their captives slept the two nations held 
 a long conference, and the Ottawas were unfor- 
 tunately persuaded to relinquish their grievance 
 and return the prisoners to their former con- 
 querors. The prospect for the Englishmen was 
 now dark indeed, and several of them were to 
 lose their lives that day; but as preparations 
 were being made for the slaughter, Wawatam, 
 Henry's adopted brother, walked into the coun- 
 cil. By presents he bought the trader, — all the 
 Indians recognizing his right to do so, — and 
 took him away with him into the interior. There 
 Henry spent the winter hunting with the Indians. 
 He was often in danger from hostile tribes who 
 brought tales of the siege of Detroit and sum- 
 mons from Poritiac to help in the war, but his 
 position in the family of Wawatam protected 
 him, and in the spring of 1764 he returned with 
 a party of Canadian traders to Sault Ste. Marie. 
 
 While Henry was at the Sault a canoe arrived 
 one day from Niagara. A council was assembled 
 to meet the strangers and receive their message. 
 
146 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 They proved to be the ambassadors of Sir Will- 
 iam Johnson, who warned the tribes of the great 
 English army that was coming, and advised them 
 to hasten to Niagara to make peace. Such a 
 weighty matter could not be settled by mere 
 human knowledge and wisdom ; so the Indians 
 made solemn preparations to consult their guid- 
 ing spirit, the " Great Turtle." 
 
 They built a large wigwam, within which they 
 placed a small moose-skin tent for the use of the 
 priest. At nightfall the whole village assembled 
 in the wigwam. Several fires had been kindled 
 near the tent, and their flames lighted up the 
 expectant faces of this strange assemblage. The 
 priest entered the tent, and as the skins fell over 
 him many voices were heard. Some were barking 
 like dogs, some howled like wolves, and others 
 sobbed as if in pain. After a time these frightful 
 sounds died away, and a perfect silence followed. 
 Then a voice not heard before seemed to show 
 the arrival of a new character in the tent. Henry 
 describes this as " a low feeble voice, resembling 
 the cry of a young puppy." When it was heard 
 the Indians clapped their hands for joy, for now 
 the chief spirit, the " Turtle," the spirit that 
 never lied, had come to them. The others had 
 
The Adventures of a Trader 147 
 
 been evil and lying voices. For half an hour 
 sounds of conversation were heard from the tent, 
 and then the priest spoke, saying that the " Great 
 Turtle " was come and would answer such ques- 
 tions as should be asked. The chief of the 
 village desired the priest to inquire whether the 
 English were preparing to make war on the 
 Indians, and whether there were at Fort Niagara 
 large numbers of English troops. When the 
 priest put these questions the tent began to shake 
 violently, and soon a voice announced that the 
 " Turtle " had departed. 
 
 A quarter of an hour elapsed in silence, and 
 then the voice of the " Turtle " was heard again. 
 After it had talked for some time in a language 
 unintelligible to the audience, the priest gave an 
 interpretation of what it had said. The spirit had, 
 during its short absence, crossed Lake Huron, 
 been to Fort Niagara, and thence to Montreal. 
 At Fort Niagara he had seen no great number 
 of soldiers, but on the St. Lawrence he had 
 found the river covered with boats, and the 
 boats filled with soldiers, "in number like the 
 leaves of the trees," and these were coming to 
 make war on the Indians. The chief had a third 
 question to ask, and the spirit, " without a fresh 
 
148 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 journey to Niagara/' gave an immediate and 
 most satisfactory answer. " If," said the chief, 
 " the Indians visit Sir WiUiam Johnson, will 
 they be received as friends ? " " Sir William 
 Johnson," said the spirit, "will fill their canoes 
 with presents ; with blankets, kettles, guns, gun- 
 powder and shot, and large barrels of rum, such 
 as the stoutest of the Indians will not be able to 
 lift ; and every man will return in safety to his 
 family." 
 
 " At this," writes Henry, " the transport was 
 universal; and amid the clapping of hands, a 
 hundred voices exclaimed, ' I will go, too ! I 
 will go, too ! ' " 
 
 On the loth of June, Henry embarked with 
 the Indian deputation of sixteen men, leaving 
 the scene of his long captivity. The party went 
 down Georgian Bay, across the country where 
 the great Huron missions had been built to Lake 
 Simcoe, and out past the site of Toronto to Lake 
 Ontario. There they built canoes to take the 
 place of those they had left on Georgian Bay, 
 completing two large boats in two days. They 
 spent their last night encamped four miles from 
 Fort Niagara. In the morning the Indians 
 feared to start lest they should be going into a 
 
The Adventures of a Trader 149 
 
 trap set by the English. Henry assured them 
 of a friendly welcome, and at length, after paint- 
 ing themselves in their gayest colors to show 
 their peaceable intent, and singing the song 
 which they used on going into danger, they em- 
 barked. " A few minutes after," says Henry, 
 " I crossed to the fort ; and here I was received 
 by Sir William Johnson, in a manner for which 
 I have ever been gratefully attached to his person 
 and memory." 
 
 The Indians joined in the great council, and 
 Henry conferred with General Bradstreet, who 
 with three thousand men was preparing to go up 
 Lake Erie and raise the siege of Detroit. Brad- 
 street informed him that it was his plan when he 
 reached Detroit to send a body of troops to 
 Mackinac, and that they should assist the trader 
 to recover his property there, should he care to 
 accompany them. Henry was given command 
 of a corps of Indians of the upper lakes, ninety- 
 six in number, who were to proceed with the 
 army. Among them were the sixteen men with 
 whom he had come to Niagara. Henry com- 
 ments on the reversal of conditions which made 
 him their leader, he "whose best hope it had 
 very lately been, to live through their forbear- 
 
ifo The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 ance." Most of the Indians promptly deserted, 
 not caring to march against their own nation at 
 Detroit, but Henry went on with Bradstreet and 
 landed at Detroit on the 8th of August. He pro- 
 ceeded up Lake Huron with two companies of 
 troops and three hundred Canadian volunteers to 
 Mackinac, where peace was concluded with the 
 Indians and the fort was reoccupied by English 
 soldiers. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 Wayne's indian campaign 
 
 WITH the turn of a single page of his- 
 tory and the passage of a single decade 
 of time, during this century of struggle 
 for possession, the actors in the drama change, or 
 if the same actors remain, a new set of circum- 
 stances makes them play a new part amid the old 
 scenes. Like the bits of glass in a kaleidoscope 
 they are shaken up and come out in new com- 
 binations, and with them our ideas and sympathies 
 are shaken up and must be readjusted. 
 
 We have followed the fortunes of the little 
 English garrisons at Detroit and Mackinac in 
 their struggles against a horde of savages, and 
 have breathed a sigh of relief when a strong 
 British army came to the rescue and England 
 once more resumed possession of her lake posts. 
 We return to Detroit in twelve years to find 
 General Hamilton, the British commander of the 
 French-English town, reading with scorn the 
 
152 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 announcement in a stray copy of the Pennsyl- 
 vania Gazette of July, 1776, that a new American 
 nation has been formed and a Declaration of 
 Independence has been adopted. Within two 
 years Daniel Boone, the hero pioneer, is brought 
 to Detroit a British prisoner, taken by Indians 
 in their raid on Kentucky, and before he has 
 made his escape from prison, Hamilton is chant- 
 ing the war-song and dancing the war-dance at 
 a grand council of Indians. To them he is offer- 
 ing his congratulations on the success of their 
 raids into the southern states of the newly formed 
 Union, on the number of prisoners they have 
 taken, and especially on the far greater number 
 of scalps they have brought. The War of the 
 Revolution has begun, and with it a period of 
 bloodshed in the Northwest. 
 
 While the main bodies of troops were being 
 marshalled and the decisive battles were being 
 fought in the south and the east, the British 
 carried on upon the western frontier an incessant 
 Indian warfare. This border campaign was 
 marked by a horrible series of bloody raids and 
 massacres, many of which were planned at 
 Niagara and Detroit. Niagara, wrested in the 
 past from the Indians and the French, became 
 
Wayne's Indian Campaign 153 
 
 at this time a place of refuge for the loyalists 
 of New York, " a nest of Tories," and a centre 
 of British influence so strong that an American 
 leader could make no more telling expression 
 of his dread of the threatened loss of a southern 
 point of vantage than to say that it must be 
 saved, for if taken by the British it would become 
 "another Niagara." 
 
 From Detroit, Hamilton set out in the summer 
 of 1778 with a force of one hundred and seventy- 
 five men to oust from Kaskaskia and Vincennes 
 the American "rebel," George Rogers Clark, 
 who had taken these British strongholds. But 
 instead of returning to Detroit triumphant, 
 Hamilton was taken by that same young rebel 
 and started on a twelve-hundred-mile journey 
 to a Virginia prison. Even after this it seemed 
 to the Americans that plans and conspiracies 
 came out from Detroit as fast as prisoners and 
 scalps went into the British prison there. There 
 were many schemes to take the fort, but all were 
 abandoned because of its inaccessibility. 
 
 When the negotiators met at Paris, in 1782, to 
 arrange terms of peace between Great Britain and 
 the American colonies or states, it was difficult to 
 decide what should be done with the Great Lakes. 
 
154 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 At first it was suggested that the boundary line 
 between the United States and Canada should be 
 so drawn as to give the territory south of the 
 Ottawa River and Lake Superior to the United 
 States, as far west as the Mississippi. At another 
 time it was proposed that all of the land north of 
 the Ohio and west of the Alleghanies should con- 
 tinue to be Enghsh. Finally it was arranged 
 that the Great Lakes, with the exception of 
 Michigan, should form the boundary line between 
 the United States and Canada in that part of the 
 world. This arrangement gave to the United 
 States the posts at Detroit, Mackinac, and other 
 points on the lakes ; but the English would not 
 surrender them, justifying their not doing so on 
 the ground that the Americans had broken the 
 treaty in other respects. As long as the British 
 retained the posts in the Northwest, the Indians 
 of that region looked to them for support and 
 were inclined to take up an attitude of hostility 
 to the government of the United States and to 
 colonists, who now came into the Ohio Valley 
 in great numbers. Treaties were made with- 
 them, but these the Indians failed to keep, 
 and there ensued a period of confusion and 
 bloodshed on the frontier. Into the details 
 
Wayne's Indian Campaign 155 
 
 of this petty warfare it is not worth our while 
 to enter. 
 
 At first the British seemed anxious to preserve 
 peace for the sake of the fur trade, but as time 
 went on and relations between England and the 
 United States became more strained, the English 
 lent undisguised assistance to the Indians. It 
 was inevitable that there should be constant strife 
 between the rough, encroaching frontiersman who 
 overstepped the original boundaries and the jeal- 
 ous, suspicious Indian who met all wrongs by 
 treachery and violence. The record of the years 
 shows a succession of efforts for peace by the 
 United States government and a series of coun- 
 cils, treaties, ruptures, and hostilities on the part 
 of the Indians. 
 
 A formal government had been organized in 
 the Northwest by the Ordinance of 1787, which 
 created the great Northwest Territory, out of 
 which were later formed the five states of Ohio, 
 Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. By 
 1789 and 1790 the United States government 
 began to realize that it had to deal in this region 
 with no petty skirmishes with scattered tribes, 
 but with a widespread Indian uprising. Raids 
 and counter-raids must be abandoned, and war 
 
156 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 with organized armies and carefully planned cam- 
 paigns must be waged against the lawless hordes 
 of savages who were breaking faith with the white 
 man and murdering whom they pleased. 
 
 An expedition under the leadership of General 
 Harmar, sent north in 1790 from Fort Washing- 
 ton (Cincinnati), met defeat at the hands of the 
 Indians at the present Fort Wayne. A similar 
 expedition, commanded a year later by General 
 St. Clair, was routed on a battle-ground in cen- 
 tral Ohio, and the whole frontier was terrorized. 
 Matters had now become serious. Armies of 
 regulars had been defeated by these savage mas- 
 ters of the art of treacherous warfare, and the 
 Indians were becoming more and more aggressive 
 in their elation at their victories, while the British 
 were becoming more and more open in their sup- 
 port of the lake tribes. 
 
 Needing a leader who could drive back the 
 Indians, President Washington turned to a sol- 
 dier who had distinguished himself in the Revo- 
 lutionary War for hard fighting and daring 
 bravery. Major General Anthony Wayne had 
 so often snatched success in the face of almost 
 certain defeat that he had earned for himself the 
 nickname " Mad Anthony." He was the grand- 
 
Wayne's Indian Campaign 157 
 
 son of a Pennsylvanian pioneer and had had hard 
 schooHng from his Indian-fighting grandfather and 
 father in the methods of frontier warfare. Above 
 all else he gloried in difficulty and danger. 
 
 In April, 1792, Washington appointed Gen- 
 eral Wayne to the command of the army and sent 
 him to the Ohio to drill his men. Wayne found 
 there the remnant of St. Clair's force, to which 
 were being constantly added hundreds of raw re- 
 cruits enlisted under new legislation for the cam- 
 paign by Congress. The one stipulation that 
 Wayne had made when he took command was 
 that he be allowed to wait to fight until his ranks 
 were full and his men thoroughly trained. He 
 knew that he had to deal with the same kind of 
 men who had failed St. Clair. He attributed this 
 failure to poor organization and lack of military 
 discipline. He knew, too, that he had the added 
 difficulty of meeting the paralyzing discourage- 
 ment caused by previous defeats and well-remem- 
 bered scenes of horror. Patiently and deliberately 
 he went to work, and new recruits arriving in the 
 summer and autumn found themselves living 
 in a camp where an army was being taught with 
 all speed the essentials of warfare. By spring 
 Wayne had twenty-five hundred soldiers who 
 
158 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 were eager for the campaign and worthy of their 
 commander. 
 
 Congress was reluctant to begin war and kept 
 Wayne waiting all through the summer of 1793, 
 while it made fruitless negotiations with the In- 
 dians. The tribes finally demanded that the 
 Ohio River should be the boundary of Ameri- 
 can advance, and to this the government could 
 not agree. In October Wayne was given permis- 
 sion to open his campaign, but with cautions that 
 on no account was he to run any risks of defeat. 
 He moved his men from Fort Washington to a 
 point eighty miles north, which he fortified as 
 a winter camp and named Greenville in honor of 
 his former comrade at arms. Captain Nathanael 
 Greene. Here he spent the winter, sending a 
 large detachment of his men north to build on 
 St. Clair's fatal battle-ground a fort which was 
 prophetically named Fort Recovery. Several 
 skirmishes with the Indians took place at Green- 
 ville during the winter, and In the early summer 
 a large war-party made an unsuccessful attack on 
 Fort Recovery. On the 27th of July, 1794, 
 General Wayne started with his " legion " of 
 troops, more than two thousand men, for the 
 Miami towns of northern Ohio. 
 
Wayne's Indian Campaign 159 
 
 The march of the American army was watched 
 with wonder and admiration by the Indians, who 
 reported to the British that the soldiers went 
 twice as far in a day as St. Clair's had done, that 
 Wayne kept scouts out in every direction, and 
 that he was always ready for attack and guarded 
 carefully against ambush by day or surprise by 
 night. At the junction of the Maumee and 
 Auglaize rivers, where the line of hostile Indian 
 villages began, Wayne built a strong log stock- 
 ade which he christened with the characteristic 
 name of Fort Defiance, a name perpetuated to 
 this day. Warned of his approach, the Indians 
 had fled, leaving their homes and their rich fields 
 of corn and vegetables, in which the soldiers rev- 
 elled after their hard march and short rations. 
 From Fort Defiance Wayne sent a final offer of 
 peace to the Indians, declaring that he would 
 restore to them their lands and villages and pre- 
 serve their women and children from famine 
 should they agree to a lasting peace. The In- 
 dians returned an evasive answer, and Wayne 
 advanced against them. From scouts he learned 
 that the natives were encamped near the British 
 fort on the Maumee River a few miles west of the 
 present city of Toledo. There were between 
 
i6o The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 fifteen hundred and two thousand warriors in 
 all, with seventy rangers from Detroit, — the 
 latter company being made up of French, Eng- 
 lish, and other refugees. 
 
 On the 20th of August Wayne met the 
 Indians at a spot some six miles down the river, 
 known as the Fallen Timbers because there a 
 whirlwind had overturned the forest and left the 
 trees piled across one another in rows. Wayne's 
 army numbered about three thousand men, two- 
 thirds of whom were regulars, and one-third 
 mounted volunteers from Kentucky led by 
 General Scott. At the front of the line was a 
 small force of mounted volunteers, and back of 
 them were the carefully placed lines of infantry 
 and cavalry. The Indians were secreted as usual 
 in the woods and tall grass and behind the piles 
 of trees. From their shelter they poured a 
 murderous fire into the ranks of the army, but 
 the volunteers pressed on. The front line of 
 infantry rushed up and dislodged the savages 
 from their covert, the cavalry dashed over the 
 rough ground and the piles of logs, and the 
 Indians fled before the second line of soldiers 
 could even come up to the battle-field. Of this 
 engagement one of the men wrote that there was 
 
Wayne's Indian Campaign 16 1 
 
 not " a sufficiency of the enemy for the Legion to 
 play upon." The entire action lasted less than 
 forty minutes, and not a third of Wayne's force 
 took part in it. The army pursued the fugitives 
 two miles to the shelter of the British fort, and 
 then burned everything near by. Thirty-three 
 Americans were killed and one hundred wounded 
 in this engagement, which closed a forty years' 
 warfare with the Indians in as many minutes. 
 Wayne's carefully drilled troops had won the 
 most decisive victory ever gained over the 
 Indians of the Northwest. 
 
 General Wayne completed his conquest by 
 marching back to Fort Recovery, and thence 
 westward to the Miami towns at the junction of 
 St. Mary's and St. Joseph's rivers, the scene of 
 Harmar's disaster. The Indians dared offer no 
 resistance, but fled before his triumphant army. 
 Along his route he burned their villages, and at 
 the meeting-place of the rivers he built the fort 
 which was to perpetuate his name to the present 
 day. Fort Wayne. Then he returned to Green- 
 ville for the winter. Meanwhile the anger of 
 the Indians had been stirred by the inaction of 
 their British allies, who had urged them on to 
 war but had furnished no troops from Detroit. 
 
1 62 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 A new respect had been called forth for the 
 Americans. All the winter Wayne received at 
 Greenville delegations from various Indian tribes, 
 and in the summer of 1795 a formal treaty was 
 signed, in which Wayne, representing the United 
 States, made peace with all the western tribes. 
 Eleven hundred and thirty Indians assembled, 
 making a full representation from all tribes pre- 
 viously hostile. Gathered about the council-fire 
 and suppHed with a pile of wampum strings, the 
 chiefs and the American general conferred day 
 after day as the various groups of Indians arrived 
 during the months of June and July. The record 
 of their speeches is eighty pages long and carries 
 one back to the days when Champlain and Fron- 
 tenac conferred with their Indian children and re- 
 ceived their repentant promises of good behavior 
 in the future ; but now Wayne was addressed by 
 the chiefs as " Elder Brother," and he called them 
 always his younger brothers. 
 
 By the treaty of Greenville the Indians ceded 
 to the United States all of what is now southern 
 Ohio and southeastern Indiana, various reserva- 
 tions about the forts of Detroit, Michilimackinac, 
 and those which Wayne had built, a six-mile 
 tract at Chicago, and a large grant of land near 
 
Wayne's Indian Campaign 163 
 
 the Falls of the Ohio. The government, in its 
 turn, agreed to the Indian title to the remaining 
 country, and promised to pay the tribes large 
 annuities. Both sides were to return all prisoners. 
 Wayne, by his skill at warfare, had brought to the 
 borders a peace that lasted for fifteen years, when 
 new conditions brought new difficulties. 
 
 While Wayne was fighting for the supremacy 
 of the United States in the Northwest, John Jay 
 was representing the government in London in 
 negotiations for a treaty which should settle dis- 
 puted points between the two nations, providing, 
 among other things, for the settlement by a com- 
 mission of any ambiguities in the boundaries and 
 for the surrender of the lake posts to the Ameri- 
 cans. In 1796 this treaty was ratified by Con- 
 gress, and American officers were sent to take 
 command of the various posts. With appro- 
 priate ceremonies the English flag was lowered 
 and the American Stars and Stripes were raised 
 at each of the posts whose history we have fol- 
 lowed under French and later under English 
 control. General Wayne was sent by a grateful 
 Congress to conduct the final transfer of the forts. 
 After a twelve-hundred-mile journey he arrived 
 at Detroit, where he was received with great 
 
164 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 honor by Indians, English, French, and Ameri- 
 cans. Leaving there in November for Presque 
 Isle, he was taken with his old enemy, the gout, 
 and died at that place. His remains were later 
 removed by his son to Philadelphia, but a log- 
 house, patterned after the one which Wayne him- 
 self built there in 1790, marks to-day the place 
 of his grave at the present city of Erie, Pennsyl- 
 vania. 
 
 It is worthy of note that the month before 
 General Wayne started for Detroit to conclude 
 the ceremonies of taking possession of that post, 
 Moses Cleveland, with a party of Connecticut 
 pioneers, set out to found on the shores of Lake 
 Erie the city which bears his name, — the ad- 
 vance guard of an army of occupation which the 
 stipulations of the treaty of Greenville and 
 Wayne's intimidation of the Indians made 
 possible. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE GREAT LAKES IN THE WAR OF l8l2 
 
 FROM the surrender of the northwest posts 
 and the founding of Cleveland to the year 
 1 8 12, there is little to note in the history 
 of the Great Lakes. The forts were gradually 
 strengthened, the fur trade was continued, and a 
 few settlements were made on the southern shores 
 of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. Travel and- 
 transportation between the Atlantic seaboard and 
 the Great Lakes were so difficult that few settlers 
 found their way into the lake region, and there 
 was no market for such agricultural products as 
 were raised. In the same period the Ohio Valley 
 was fast filling up, and settlers were pushing west- 
 ward and northward from the Ohio River into 
 central Ohio and Indiana. The ever increasing 
 pressure on the Indians of that region aroused 
 their fears and resentment, and made them listen 
 to the plans of an able chieftain, Tecumseh, who 
 banded them together in a strong league for re- 
 
 165 
 
1 66 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 sistance to the whites. The natives looked for aid 
 to the British in Canada, but how far these had gone 
 in encouraging the Indians is unknown. In 1811 
 matters became so serious that General William 
 Henry Harrison, Governor of Indiana Territory, 
 marched against the Indians and defeated them 
 in the battle of Tippecanoe. When the War of 
 1 8 12 began, Tecumseh and many of his allies 
 joined the British. 
 
 The opening of the war found the lake frontier 
 of the United States exposed and almost unpro- 
 tected. At Fort Wayne there were eighty-five 
 soldiers, at Fort Harrison (Terre Haute) fifty, 
 at Fort Dearborn (Chicago) fifty-three, at Fort 
 Mackinac eighty-eight, and at Detroit one hun- 
 dred and twenty. The last-named post claimed 
 early attention, because of its great importance, 
 and also because of its exposed situation. Its loss 
 to the United States would mean the loss of the 
 upper lakes, at least temporarily. The problem 
 was a difficult one because the United States 
 had no war vessels on the lakes to secure com- 
 munication between Detroit and the settlements 
 on the southeastern shore of Lake Erie. Will- 
 iam Hull, Governor of Michigan Territory, fully 
 recognized the importance of a naval force, but 
 
The Great Lakes in the War of 1 8 12 167 
 
 he was obliged to do what he could to defend 
 Detroit without one. In the spring of 18 12, with 
 three regiments of Ohio militia, a troop of Ohio 
 dragoons, and a regiment of United States infan- 
 try, — in all about sixteen hundred men, — he 
 set out from the settlements in Ohio to march 
 overland to reenforce this important post. The 
 route lay through the wilderness, much of the 
 way over swampy grounds, but the soldiers cut 
 roads and advanced with a rapidity that amazed 
 the British. At Frenchtown, on the River 
 Raisin, forty miles below Detroit, Hull received 
 word that war had been declared. Before this he 
 had sent a schooner to Detroit with supplies and 
 a letter to the commandant apprising him of his 
 coming. This vessel was seized by the British 
 soldiers stationed at Maiden, on the Canadian 
 side of the Detroit River, and some distance 
 below the American town. 
 
 On the 5th of July, 1812, Hull reached De- 
 troit. Besides its small garrison, the town con- 
 tained about eight hundred inhabitants. It was 
 defensible from Indian attacks, but was within 
 gunshot of the British side of the Detroit River, 
 was insufficiently supplied with provisions and 
 ammunition for a siege, and was liable to be 
 
1 68 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 completely cut off from communication with the 
 United States should the British gain command 
 of Lake Erie and the road along the river to the 
 south. At once, Hull seized the town of Sand- 
 wich, opposite Detroit, and issued a proclamation 
 to the inhabitants of Canada which brought many 
 of them over to the American side, but an expedi- 
 tion which was to have reenforced him from 
 Niagara came to naught. 
 
 On the British side in the spring of 1812, 
 affairs seemed even more gloomy, but the diffi- 
 culties were overcome by the capability and cour- 
 age of one man. Brigadier General Isaac Brock, 
 who exercised entire command in upper Canada. 
 He had at his disposal barely two thousand men, 
 who were hundreds of miles from their supplies 
 and scattered through several posts. When war 
 seemed imminent. Brock fitted out armed vessels 
 on Lake Erie and strengthened the defences of 
 Maiden. The moment war was declared, he 
 directed a subordinate to seize the American post 
 at Michilimackinac and himself hurried with all 
 available men to the Detroit River. 
 
 Day after day the American army waited at 
 Sandwich before striking a decisive blow at the 
 British in their fort at Maiden. General Hull 
 
The Great Lakes in the War of 1 8 12 169 
 
 had, indeed, good reason for fear of failure, for 
 although he had more men than the British, the 
 English army had in its fortification a base of 
 attack, and in its fleet a pronounced advantage. 
 With ineffective saUies into the neighboring 
 country and prolonged councils of war the days 
 wore on, and the officers as Well as the rank and 
 file of the army became more and more dis- 
 heartened. They had crossed the river July 
 12. They finally set August 8 for the attack 
 on Maiden ; but meanwhile word came that 
 British reenforcements were on their way to the 
 fort, and that a party of Indians under Tecumseh 
 had captured the American supplies and mail- 
 bags coming from Ohio. Prisoners of war from 
 Fort Mackinac arrived at the American camp, 
 announcing that their fort had been surrendered 
 and that a horde of Indians were coming from 
 the Northwest to attack Detroit in the rear. 
 With the British garrison at Maiden increased, 
 Detroit threatened by the Indians, and the line of 
 communication between the American army and 
 headquarters in danger, Hull saw nothing to do but 
 to recross the river ; and on the night of the day 
 when he had planned to attack the British fort he 
 withdrew with his force to Detroit, 
 
lyo The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 Meanwhile General Brock reached Maiden, 
 held a council of war at which Tecumseh with 
 his following of a thousand Indians was present, 
 and sent to General Hull a summons to sur- 
 render. Hull refused to yield and started mes- 
 sengers to recall an expedition of three hundred 
 and fifty men which he had despatched under 
 two Ohio colonels, MacArthur and Lewis Cass, 
 to the River Raisin to rescue the necessary sup- 
 plies for the army. As soon as Hull's reply was 
 received two British vessels moved up the river 
 to Sandwich, where their guns could cover the 
 American fort. During the night Tecumseh and 
 six hundred Indians crossed to the American 
 side of the river and established themselves in 
 the woods at a point where they could intercept 
 the returning Ohio colonels with their force. On 
 the morning of August i6, General Brock 
 crossed the river with seven hundred soldiers. 
 The British commander had intended to take up 
 a position and force Hull to attack him, but 
 after he reached the American bank of the 
 river, he learned from Tecumseh that the Ohio 
 detachment was only a few miles away. Fearing 
 lest he be surrounded if he delay. Brock deter- 
 mined to make an immediate attack. 
 
The Great Lakes in the War ofi8i2 171 
 
 Within his tent General Hull sat debating 
 what to do. Should he admit to his officers and 
 men his desire to surrender at once, their undis- 
 guised scorn at his previous delays would perhaps 
 turn to open mutiny ; yet he felt sure that the 
 fort must ultimately be taken, and he dreaded the 
 loss of life and possible Indian massacre should 
 he hold out. The British column began to ad- 
 vance. Every soldier expected that the heavy 
 American guns which were pointed toward them 
 would be lighted and discharged into their midst ; 
 instead, an American was seen advancing from the 
 fort with a white flag. Within an hour, and with- 
 out the firing of a single shot, the surprised British 
 troops found themselves in possession of Detroit. 
 Hull included in the terms of capitulation not 
 only the troops within the fort but the Ohio de- 
 tachment now advancing up the river, so that 
 General Brock gained at least twenty-five hundred 
 prisoners of war. The mortification of the coun- 
 try at the whole course of the war vented itself 
 after this surrender upon General Hull, who was 
 really the victim of poor management of the army 
 and lack of support at headquarters. He might 
 have been forced to give up Detroit within a few 
 weeks unless he was reenforced, but he could have 
 
172 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 kept Brock from returning to harry Niagara in 
 nine days. 
 
 Detroit was surrendered on the morning of 
 August 16. On the same day and at the same 
 hour Fort Dearborn at Chicago was being burned 
 by an Indian war-party, after the members of its 
 garrison had been massacred. Two weeks earlier 
 Hull had sent an order to Captain Heald, com- 
 mander of the fort, to evacuate it if practicable. 
 The Indian runner reached Fort Dearborn on 
 August 9 with this message and with the news of 
 the fall of Fort Mackinac, the receipt of which 
 had been the occasion of Hull's decision in regard 
 to Chicago. 
 
 It had taken the Indian messenger a suspi- 
 ciously long time to make the journey, and as 
 Indians from a distance began to gather about the 
 fort it was surmised that he had in some way 
 learned the contents of the message, and in par- 
 ticular the clause which directed that Captain 
 Heald deliver up to the Indians all the public 
 property of the garrison, and had told the news 
 along the way. Accounts diifer as to what Cap- 
 tain Heald promised to the Indians. According 
 to the story of Mr. Kinzie, a trader in the fort, 
 Captain Heald held a council with them, at which 
 
The Great Lakes in the War of 1812 173 
 
 he agreed to divide among them the public prop- 
 erty at the fort on condition that they should 
 furnish him with a friendly escort. Unfortunately 
 the two things that the Indians most wanted were 
 ammunition and liquor. These the white men 
 considered it an act of madness to put into their 
 hands, and under cover of night knocked in the 
 heads of the barrels and poured the whiskey into 
 the river, threw powder, bags of shot, and cart- 
 ridges into the river, and breaking to pieces the 
 muskets and pistols they could not take with them, 
 dropped them into a well. An unknown writer, 
 who was present at the time, distinctly states that 
 Heald objected to this act and argued that it was 
 a bad thing to lie to an Indian. The watchful 
 Indians found out what had been done, and from 
 that time on the older chiefs were unable to re- 
 strain the anger of their young men. So many 
 Indians had gathered that the officers became 
 convinced that the tribes had been notified by the 
 messenger from Detroit as he made his trip of the 
 distribution of gifts that was to take place. The 
 supply of blankets, paints, calicoes, and trinkets 
 that were given out did not satisfy the warriors. 
 
 On the evening of the 13th of August the 
 garrison was cheered by the arrival from Fort 
 
174 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 Wayne of Captain William Wells, a famous In- 
 dian fighter and uncle of Mrs. Heald, the com- 
 mander's wife. This man had had a most roman- 
 tic life. Born in Kentucky, he had been stolen 
 when a boy of twelve by the Indians and adopted 
 by a chief of the Mlamis, whose daughter he had 
 married. He had grown up with the Indians 
 and fought their battles with them as a matter of 
 course, taking part in the engagements with Gen- 
 eral Harmar and General St. Clair. Discovered 
 by his Kentucky kindred and convinced that he 
 was brother of Captain Samuel Wells, he had been 
 persuaded after a time to return to his own people. 
 He had bidden his Indian father-in-law a dra- 
 matic farewell, telling him that in the past they had 
 been friends, but henceforth they must be ene- 
 mies ; but as a matter of fact he had always kept 
 in friendly relation with his former chief and had 
 on one occasion saved his family from being taken 
 prisoners. He had been one of Wayne's most 
 valuable scouts, and had since occupied the posi- 
 tion of Indian agent, first at Chicago and now at 
 Fort Wayne, where he was living with his Indian 
 wife. Hearing of the probable evacuation of 
 Fort Dearborn he had marched thither with all 
 haste, bringing a party of thirty friendly Miamis 
 
The Great Lakes in the War ofi8i2 175 
 
 in the hope that he could be of assistance to 
 his friends and especially to his favorite niece, 
 Mrs. Heald. 
 
 On the morning of the 15th of August, at nine 
 o'clock, the soldiers left the fort for their journey 
 of two hundred and eighty miles to Detroit. 
 Without a sign of ill-feeling the Indians bade 
 them good-by, and the little party started along 
 the lake shore. Captain Wells with half his Mi- 
 amis, all mounted on Indian ponies, led the line. 
 The soldiers of the garrison with the wagons, in 
 which sat the twelve women and twenty children, 
 followed directly behind them, and the remainder 
 of the friendly Miamis brought up the rear. 
 The escort of five hundred furnished by the 
 neighboring tribes kept abreast of the troops until 
 they reached the sand-hills, a quarter of a mile 
 from the fort. There they struck out suddenly 
 into the prairie and disappeared, hurrying forward 
 to prepare an ambuscade. 
 
 The little company had proceeded about a 
 mile and a half when Captain Wells was seen to 
 turn and ride back, swinging his hat in a circle 
 above his head, which, in the sign language of 
 the frontier, meant : " We are surrounded by 
 Indians." As he came nearer he shouted, "We 
 
176 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 are surrounded. March up on the sand ridges." 
 All at once, in the language of Mrs. Heald, who 
 left a graphic report, they saw " Indians' heads 
 sticking up and down again here and there, like 
 turtles out of water." As the member of the 
 party most experienced in Indian warfare. Captain 
 Wells was immediately put in command. He 
 led the men in a charge up the bank, and with a 
 volley of shot they broke the line of the Indians. 
 A- second time they charged, and again the In- 
 dians drew back. But though they were beaten 
 in front, they poured in from all sides, captured 
 the horses and baggage, and began to kill the 
 women and children. For fifteen or twenty 
 minutes the fight went on. Captain Wells was 
 here, there, and everywhere. With two pistols 
 and a gun, which he kept reloading with light- 
 ning rapidity, he sighted and brought down the 
 warriors in the midst of their wanton work. 
 
 Wounded himself and isolated on a mound 
 with a remnant of his men. Captain Heald saw 
 that there was no hope but to surrender. The 
 Indians made signs for him to approach them, 
 and he offered to surrender in the hope of sparing 
 further bloodshed. His own wife was slightly 
 wounded, and Mrs. Helm, the wife of his lieu- 
 
The Great Lakes in the War of 1 8 12 177 
 
 tenant, had only been saved from being toma- 
 hawked by the friendly chief. Black Partridge, 
 who seized her from the grasp of her captor, and 
 took her to the water, where he made feint to 
 drown her, but kept her head out until the fight 
 was over. After the surrender Captain Wells 
 rode up, desperately wounded, to send farewell 
 messages to his wife, and was killed on the in- 
 stant by a group of Indians, who mangled his 
 body horribly. Of the ninety-three in the party 
 but thirty-six were still living. Of the sixty-six 
 fighting men forty-three had been killed, and 
 only seven women and six children survived. 
 Some of the prisoners made their escape, finding 
 their way to safety through a series of hairbreadth 
 adventures ; some died in captivity, and others 
 were exchanged at intervals during the next two 
 years. On the spot where the massacre took 
 place, — then out in open prairie, now at the foot 
 of Eighteenth Street in the city of Chicago, — there 
 stands a noble monument to the Fort Dearborn 
 garrison. 
 
 With Fort Dearborn and Fort Mackinac aban- 
 doned, the last American defences on the west- 
 ern lakes were gone. The boundary line of the 
 United States became the Wabash and Maumee 
 
lyS The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 rivers, and the surrender of Detroit made it 
 doubtful whether even that line could be 
 maintained. The hold of the United States on 
 the Great Lakes in August, 1812, looked very 
 uncertain. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE CONQUEST OF LAKE ERIE 
 
 THE year 1813 began with another dis- 
 aster for the United States. After the 
 surrender of Detroit, Governor William 
 Henry Harrison, of the Indiana Territory, placed 
 himself at the head of a popular movement to 
 retrieve the defeat at any cost and to recover 
 Detroit. It was winter before he succeeded in 
 getting an army within reach of the lake coast. 
 For months the three divisions of his force of ten 
 thousand men struggled through the swampy 
 lands of Ohio, where the movement of troops 
 and of necessary provisions was rendered well- 
 nigh impossible by the heavy rains. On. the 
 15th of January two Frenchmen had entered 
 the camp of the advance division of the army, 
 which under command of General Winchester was 
 establishing itself at a point on the Maumee River 
 twenty miles inland from Lake Erie. They urged 
 the troops to occupy Frenchtown, a village on the 
 
 179 
 
i8o The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 American shore of Lake Erie but within British 
 lines. This town on the River Raisin was held by 
 Canadians and Indians, and its loss, if taken by the 
 Americans, would be a serious blow to the British. 
 Six hundred and fifty men, the flower of the Ken- 
 tucky regiments, started under the command of 
 Colonel Lewis for the attack. After considerable 
 losses the Americans seized the town. General 
 Winchester hastened to their support with three 
 hundred more men, making a total American force 
 at the River Raisin of eight or nine hundred men. 
 General Proctor, Brock's successor at Fort 
 Maiden, had under his command over two thou- 
 sand soldiers. On the morning of January 22, 
 1 8 13, he crossed the lake on the ice with a force 
 of six hundred men and from six to eight hun- 
 dred Indians and attacked the Americans in the 
 ill-fortified village. When the hard-fought en- 
 gagement was ended four hundred Americans 
 were missing, either killed during the battle 
 by the British or scalped by the Indians in the 
 horrible massacre that followed the defeat. Only 
 after the ammunition had given out and retreat 
 had been proved impossible because of the deep 
 snow and the position of the enemy, did the 
 last of the gallant Kentuckians surrender. "Re- 
 
The Conquest of Lake Erie i8i 
 
 member the River Raisin " became the watch- 
 word of a desperate people, and operations on 
 the Great Lakes were suspended until Commo- 
 dore Perry was ready with his navy to retrieve 
 these defeats and turn the tide of American 
 fortune. 
 
 Oliver Hazard Perry had been brought up in 
 the naval service. His father was a gallant sea- 
 man who had fought in the Revolution and been 
 on the sea ever since. When Oliver was ready he 
 was appointed midshipman on his father's ship, 
 and had seen since that day service in the West 
 Indies, in the Tripolitan war, and off the Atlan- 
 tic coast. At the beginning of the War of 1 8 1 2 
 he was put in charge of a flotilla of gun-boats 
 stationed at Newport, but he had petitioned to 
 be removed from this retirement and placed in 
 active service, preferably on the lakes. He was 
 summoned in the winter of 1813 to take charge 
 of the construction of vessels on Lake Erie. He 
 found the lake fleet divided. At the Black 
 Rock Navy Yard on the Niagara River lay sev- 
 eral vessels, unable to get out past the British 
 fleet and the overlooking British forts. At Erie, 
 Pennsylvania, two brigs, a schooner, and a gun- 
 boat were being built. It was for Perry to unite. 
 
1 82 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 the two sections of the fleet, to provide them 
 with a crew of able seamen, and to force the 
 British fleet into decisive action. 
 
 An American victory on the Niagara River 
 on the 27th of May set free the vessels at Black 
 Rock. Perry was on hand to superintend their 
 laborious removal from the navy-yard. Oxen 
 and men worked day after day dragging the 
 vessels against the heavy current of the river into 
 Lake Erie. Once on the waters of the lake 
 the American ships under Perry's command 
 evaded the British cruisers which were sail- 
 ing back and forth between Niagara and Erie, 
 with the sole purpose of intercepting them, 
 and reached the latter port in safety. For 
 two months the fleet lay in that harbor while 
 Perry strained every nerve to get the vessels 
 into shape and secure sailors to man them. 
 We get a little idea of his difficulties by the fact 
 that between the last of May and the first of 
 August he cut down his requirements in the num- 
 ber of seamen to one-half his original estimate. 
 On the sixth day of August all preparations were 
 completed and the fleet sailed out on Lake Erie. 
 
 Commodore Perry was twenty-eight years old ; 
 his antagonist, Barclay, was thirty-two. Barclay 
 
The Conquest of Lake Erie 183 
 
 had met as many difficulties as Perry in getting 
 his fleet ready, and especially in securing pro- 
 visions for his men. The American squadron 
 had, moreover, cut off communication between 
 Fort Maiden and its source of supplies. So in 
 September, even though his best vessel, the 
 Detroit, had to be launched unfinished from the 
 stocks, Barclay saw no choice but to fight at once. 
 Early on the morning of September 9, the British 
 fleet sailed to meet the American squadron, which 
 was anchored at the mouth of the Sandusky River. 
 Barclay had six vessels with sixty-three guns, 
 and probably about four hundred and fifty men. 
 Perry had nine vessels with fifty-four guns, and 
 about the same number of available men. His 
 guns, however, were much heavier, and his 
 vessels larger. 
 
 At daybreak of September 10, Perry's look- 
 out discovered the approaching British fleet; the 
 American ships at once weighed anchor, in twelve 
 minutes they were under sail and standing toward 
 the enemy. The wind was light and the lake 
 calm, so that both sides found difficulty in getting 
 into position, but by noon they were drawn up 
 for battle. The British vessels were in a single 
 column, the American in a somewhat more irregu- 
 
184 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 lar formation, and each vessel opposed one of its 
 own tonnage and build in the enemy's fleet. 
 Barclay commanded the Detroit, a ship of four 
 hundred and ninety tons carrying nineteen guns, 
 and opposite him was Perry's flagship, the Law- 
 rence, with twenty guns. At a quarter before 
 twelve the British opened fire, and the Americans 
 replied. 
 
 Finding the British fire at long range very 
 destructive, especially to his own vessel. Perry 
 set more sail and passed the word by hail of 
 trumpet for the whole line to close up and ad- 
 vance nearer the enemy. For two hours the 
 fleets mancEuvred in this position, the Lawrence 
 within two hundred and fifty yards of the Detroit 
 and both vessels pouring a heavy fire into each 
 other. A second vessel, the ^een Charlotte, 
 came to the support of Barclay, and Perry's flag- 
 ship, after sustaining the action for over two 
 hours, was seriously disabled. Every gun was 
 rendered useless, the greater part of the crew 
 killed or wounded, and the rigging shot away. 
 At 2.30 the English commander saw the Law- 
 rence drop from her position and a small boat 
 pass from her to the Niagara, a vessel under com- 
 mand of Lieutenant Elliot, which had been at 
 
The Conquest of Lake Erie 185 
 
 some distance from the main engagement and was 
 at this time comparatively fresh. As Barclay 
 wrote in his official report, " The American com- 
 modore, seeing that as yet the day was against 
 him, made a noble and, alas ! too successful an 
 effort to regain it; for he bore up [in the Ni~ 
 agara] and supported by his small vessels, 
 passed within pistol-shot and took a raking posi- 
 tion on our bow." Up to this time the result 
 of the action had been in doubt. For some rea- 
 son the portion of the fleet under Elliot had pur- 
 sued an independent course, and Perry with the 
 vessels nearest him had been too hard pressed. 
 A bitter dispute as to the cause of this condition 
 was waged by Elliot's friends in the ensuing years 
 after the close of the war. Whatever the reason, 
 it was evident to all that the American force was 
 not in its most effective position because so many 
 of the vessels were fighting at long range instead 
 of at close. When Elliot came up near enough 
 to the disabled flagship to allow Perry to go on 
 board, the advantage was for the first time on 
 the American side. Perry was able to bear down 
 on the Detroit and pour into her volleys of shot 
 so that, with American vessels on every side aid- 
 ing in the attack, she soon became completely 
 
1 86 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 disabled. The topmasts and rigging were cut 
 away, the hull was shattered, and the vessel be- 
 came unmanageable. Within half an hour the 
 British commander was forced to strike his flag 
 and surrender. 
 
 It had been a desperate alternative for Com- 
 modore Perry to venture into a small boat and 
 transfer his flag from one ship to another. By 
 his personal action in thus rushing his own vessel 
 in at the crisis and exposing himself to a fusillade 
 from the enemy for several minutes before he 
 could make any reply to it. Perry had won the 
 battle for the Americans. He determined to re- 
 ceive the surrender on his original flagship, the 
 Lawrence, at whose peak had been flying through- 
 out the battle the words spoken a few months 
 before by the hero for whom the vessel was 
 named, the dying commander of the Chesapeake, 
 " Don't give up the ship." Perry returned to 
 the ship and the English oflicers came to him 
 there. Each presented his sword, and in reply 
 Perry bowed and requested that their side-arms 
 be retained by the officers. The deck of the 
 Lawrence was covered with dead and wounded. 
 On both sides the battle had been very hard- 
 fought, and the loss of life, both of officers and 
 
The Conquest of Lake Erie 187 
 
 men, was very heavy. Out of one hundred and 
 three men on the Lawrence twenty-two had been 
 killed and sixty-one wounded. On both the flag- 
 ships every officer save Perry was killed or 
 wounded, even Barclay being seriously injured, 
 and the loss on these vessels was probably four- 
 fifths of the men disabled or killed. When the 
 ceremony of surrender was over, Perry tore off 
 the back of an old letter, and using his hat for a 
 writing-desk, wrote to General Harrison, stationed 
 with reenforcements on the Sandusky River : 
 " We have met the enemy, and they are ours ; 
 two ships, two brigs, one schooner, and one 
 sloop." 
 
 Perry's victory was immediately followed up 
 both by himself and by General Harrison. Within 
 a week the remnant of the fleet was ready to con- 
 vey land forces to Maiden, where they disem- 
 barked on the 27th of September. The timidity 
 and incompetence of the British general. Proctor, 
 gave the Americans a great advantage. To the 
 utter scorn of Tecumseh and his Indians, who 
 were supporting the British, General Proctor 
 evacuated Maiden, Detroit, and Sandwich without 
 a stroke in their defence, and retired along the 
 road to Lake Ontario even before the Americans 
 
1 88 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 landed. With such a start Harrison thought 
 that the English with their thousand horses would 
 be out of his reach, but he prepared to follow 
 them. This Proctor seems not to have included 
 in the range of possibilities. 
 
 By easy marches the British proceeded to 
 Chatham, fifty miles from Sandwich on the River 
 Thames. Here Proctor halted the army while 
 he himself went on to the Moravian town twenty- 
 six miles beyond. The American army appeared, 
 and the British tried to follow their commander 
 to Chatham. The organization of the whole 
 army was by this time completely demoralized. 
 They had, however, no choice but to turn and 
 fight, as the younger officers and soldiers had 
 long desired. The British were so stationed as 
 to give the advantage of position to their oppo- 
 nents ; and the American force was strengthened 
 by a mounted regiment commanded by Richard 
 Johnson, who had won a great reputation for 
 himself and his men in previous battles on the 
 frontier. The Americans lost only fifteen men 
 in the engagement, with thirty wounded. The 
 British list of dead and wounded was also short, 
 but nearly five hundred were taken prisoners, and 
 their supply of provisions and ammunition fell 
 
The Conquest of Lake Erie 189 
 
 into the hands of the Americans. Only two hun- 
 dred of this whole division of the British army 
 returned to report at headquarters a month later. 
 The Indian warrior, Tecumseh, was killed in this 
 battle, and with his death the remote prospect of 
 an Indian confederacy was gone. After these 
 two victories the western Indians fell away from 
 their alliance with the British and took no 
 active part in the war. 
 
 The last year of the war, the year 18 14, was 
 marked by constant and active operations on Lake 
 Ontario and about Niagara. The naval move- 
 ments were not particularly effective on the Ameri- 
 can side, nor did they win great results. The 
 possession of the Niagara River was sharply 
 contested, and the American troops distinguished 
 themselves by their bravery at the battles of 
 Chippewa Creek and Lundy's Lane. Cut off 
 from any other lake position, the British could 
 concentrate their forces at this point and throw 
 the Americans on the defensive. These battles 
 concerned, nevertheless, only a small portion 
 of the Great Lakes, which were again the 
 northern boundary of the United States. By 
 Perry's victory on Lake Erie, the subsequent 
 recovery of the Detroit River, and the defeat 
 
190 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 of the British army at the Thames, Lake Erie 
 and the whole Northwest were saved to the 
 United States. The close of the war by the 
 treaty of Ghent in the winter of 18 14 brought 
 to the lake frontier a well-earned and a lasting 
 peace. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 GENERAL LEWIS CASS AND REORGANIZATION 
 
 A PERIOD of conflict always leaves behind 
 it changed and unsettled conditions. 
 Between the close of a war and the 
 final readjustment of affairs leading up to a set- 
 tled and permanent life, there must be a time of 
 reorganization. Into this period of reconstruc- 
 tion the western territory about the Great Lakes 
 passed at the close of the War of 1 8 12. Since 
 the Ordinance of 1787 the Northwest Territory 
 had been subdivided. Ohio had become a state 
 in 1802, and the region west of it had all been in- 
 cluded in a territory under the general name of In- 
 diana, of which section William Henry Harrison 
 was the first governor. From Indiana, in its turn, 
 Michigan was set off in 1805, with William Hull 
 as its first governor. On Hull's retirement from 
 public life, after the surrender of Detroit, Colonel 
 Lewis Cass was appointed governor of Michigan 
 Territory. As the man who had most influence 
 
 191 
 
192 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 on the Northwest during these years of recon- 
 struction, Governor Cass deserves detailed notice. 
 
 Born in Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1782, Lewis 
 Cass was the son of a soldier of the Revolution. 
 During his son's boyhood Major Cass, the father, 
 was with Anthony Wayne or in command of 
 Fort Hamilton, and after the peace of Greenville 
 he brought his family, as did so many of the 
 soldiers, to the rich country through which he had 
 marched in war time. The young man divided 
 his time between Marietta, where he began the 
 study of law, and the frontier, where his father was 
 hewing a home and making a living out of the 
 wilderness. Under the state constitution of Ohio 
 the first certificate of admission to the bar was 
 given in 1802 to Lewis Cass. In the school of 
 the county court the young lawyer gained a first- 
 hand knowledge of the practice of the law and 
 an understanding of the people of the frontier and 
 how to deal with them, both of which served him 
 well in his governorship. Even before he reached 
 the proper age of eligibility he was sent to the 
 Ohio legislature, and at the outbreak of the War 
 of 1 8 12 he was given a colonel's commission. 
 
 Cass was one of the three Ohio colonels who 
 served with Hull in the ill-starred Detroit expe- 
 
General Lewis Cass and Reorganization 193 
 
 dition. Indeed, he led one of the few successful 
 minor charges of that campaign. To his great 
 indignation he was included by his general in that 
 surrender, although he was not at the fort. For 
 some months he was prisoner of war on parole. 
 As soon as he was released he joined Harrison, 
 under whom he did such efficient service that 
 Harrison left him after the battle of the Thames 
 in command of Detroit and the northwest fron- 
 tier. The President soon appointed Cass gov- 
 ernor of Michigan Territory, which then included 
 only the lower peninsula of the present state, but 
 to which the territory that is now Wisconsin was 
 added in 18 18 under the name of the Huron 
 District. 
 
 Indiana became a state two years after the close 
 of the war, but as governor of Michigan Territory 
 and superintendent of Indian affairs General Cass 
 had control of all Indian posts in the Northwest, 
 as well as of the whole of Michigan, Wisconsin, 
 and northern Illinois. Illinois became a state 
 in 1818, but at that time the only recognized 
 settlements were in the southern portion of the 
 territory, and the region about Chicago was prac- 
 tically left to the care of General Cass. The 
 management of this vast territory presented many 
 
194 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 difficulties. The governor's immediate residence, 
 Detroit, was four-fifths Canadian, and of this 
 population a large proportion was French. It 
 was only fifty years since Major Gladwin had 
 taken possession of a Detroit that was wholly 
 French, and when the Americans took command 
 in 1796 they had found a large predominance of 
 French-Canadians. These settlers were in the 
 best of times poor farmers, and in war times they 
 had stopped all attempts to cultivate the land. 
 Governor Cass found among them the most 
 absolute ignorance of the rudimentary prin- 
 ciples of farming that he had ever encountered. 
 They used one piece of ground, without the least 
 attempt to fertilize, until it was exhausted, and 
 then proceeded to another. As these settlers of 
 Detroit were typical of the more scattered inhabit- 
 ants of the region, and as the Indians were 
 almost entirely dependent on the gifts and sup- 
 plies of the ruling people, Cass found himself 
 confronted by the problem of how to feed a starv- 
 ing territory. For its immediate need he sought 
 and obtained government bounties for the people. 
 For the remedy of the condition he did every- 
 thing in his power to stimulate settlement, urging 
 the government to survey the land and allot por- 
 
General Lewis Cass and Reorganization 195 
 
 tions for sale. In this he was hindered by the 
 false reports of the first surveyors, who for some 
 reason represented the whole of Michigan as so 
 swampy, barren, or otherwise unfit for cultivation 
 that there could be no incentive to immediate 
 settlement. This, be it remembered, was said of 
 Michigan, whose rich bottom-lands, fertile prai- 
 ries, and timber tracts were soon to be so pro- 
 ductive and whose orchards were to become 
 among the greatest fruit producers of the states. 
 Cass did everything in his power to counteract 
 these statements and to further immigration. 
 Occupation of the land by thrifty settlers would 
 solve the difficulties by making the inhabitants 
 independent as they became capable of producing 
 what they needed, and would also lessen their 
 isolation by creating lines of communication with 
 the East. In these efforts he was successful. A 
 public sale of lands was held in 18 18, and by 1820 
 the population had nearly doubled since before 
 the war. The opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 
 brought in a period of rapid immigration in which 
 Cass began to see the fulfilment of his hopes. 
 The population jumped from nine thousand in 
 1820 to thirty-two thousand in 1830. This 
 came just before he was called to the position of 
 
196 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 Secretary of War at Washington. During his 
 period of national service he had the satisfaction 
 of seeing his territory flooded with newcomers, till 
 in 1837 it entered the Union as a state with one 
 hundred and seventy-five thousand inhabitants. 
 It was due to the statesmanship of its governor 
 that Michigan Territory was so well-ordered and 
 well-developed a region and was therefore so soon 
 ready for statehood. He educated the original 
 settlers to self-government^ organized courts and 
 legislative assemblies and guided their policies, 
 and furthered the cause of public education. 
 During the eighteen years of his governorship he 
 devoted himself to such service with a zeal that 
 won immediate results. 
 
 In his double position as governor and super- 
 intendent of Indian affairs, Cass did much else for 
 the western lake region. Even after the cessation 
 of hostilities, he found the British attitude hostile 
 and aggravating. This showed itself in two ways. 
 The British were inclined to ignore the rights of 
 the United States citizens and to interfere with 
 their liberty when the proximity of the two 
 nations brought up any disputed question ; they 
 also stirred the Indians to hostility. Governor 
 Cass stood out boldly, insisting that the United 
 
General Lewis Cass and Reorganization 197 
 
 States must be treated according to the customs 
 of international law between two equal powers. 
 In time the British came to realize that they were 
 dealing with a nation, not with a detached and 
 feeble territory. Governor Cass could not handle 
 so openly the British instigation of the Indians 
 to hostility toward the United States and its 
 western settlers. There was no law to prevent 
 the distribution of sixty tons of presents among 
 the Indians who gathered at Maiden from the 
 American as well as from the Canadian side of 
 the river. The British did not realize that the 
 time had come for them to give up their guardian- 
 ship of all Indian tribes who did not live within 
 their lawful jurisdiction. 
 
 In the conduct of Indian affairs Governor Cass 
 showed himself skilled as no leader had been since 
 the days of the wise French explorers. The 
 Indians had never forgotten the French mission- 
 aries. " Seven generations," said a Chippewa 
 chief, " have passed since the Frenchmen came to 
 these fails (Sault Ste. Marie), but we have not 
 forgotten them. Just, very just, were they to us." 
 This spirit of fairness now returned in Governor 
 Cass, who combined with it an insight into In- 
 dian character, a patience that enabled him to deal 
 
198 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 with the savages, and an energy which made him 
 go to endless trouble to arrange matters with 
 them. The work of this wonderful man held off 
 raids and massacres, — if not open and continued 
 war, — which would have retarded settlement in 
 this exposed wilderness for many years. If the 
 white men were to occupy the greater part of the 
 country, agreements must be made and kept with 
 the Indians. Cass recognized this as his cardinal 
 principle, and began to act on it even before the 
 close of the war. He first made treaties with the 
 Indians near Detroit. From this centre the circle 
 widened until it included the whole of his vast 
 territory and parts of more settled regions. At 
 St. Mary's in Ohio, at Saginaw in Michigan, and 
 at Chicago in Illinois, he concluded treaties which 
 brought to the United States vast stretches of 
 valuable territory. 
 
 With the permission of the government Cass 
 organized an expedition to go into the remote 
 sections of its northwestern possessions, investi- 
 gate their resources, and come into friendly rela- 
 tions with the Indians. Of this picturesque and 
 important expedition made by twenty Americans 
 into the then unknown Lake Superior country 
 Mr. Schoolcraft, one of his scientific companions. 
 
General Lewis Cass and Reorganization 199 
 
 has left us a full account. In every transaction 
 the figure of Cass stands out strong and forceful. 
 At Sault Ste. Marie he wanted to obtain a piece 
 of ground which through old British and French 
 treaties the Indians had previously admitted to 
 belong to the white men. Adorned with British 
 medals the Indians greeted him with an indepen- 
 dence of word and gesture that soon became open 
 rudeness and impudence. Retiring from the 
 council the chiefs ran up the British flag on their 
 lodge and cleared the room in preparation for 
 battle. Governor Cass, with a single interpreter, 
 walked into the Indian camp, tore down the 
 British flag, and faced the astonished savages. 
 The Americans were studious, he said, to render 
 justice and promote peace with the Indians, but 
 the flag was the distinguishing token of national 
 power, and two could not fly over the same spot. 
 The Indians were forbidden to raise any flag but 
 the American, and if they should the United 
 States would put strong feet on their necks and 
 crush them to earth. With these words he turned 
 and walked out of the lodge with the British flag 
 in his hand. In a few hours the Indians signed 
 the treaty, and the expedition proceeded on its 
 way. 
 
200 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 At the request of Cass mineralogists and geol- 
 ogists had been sent with him, and they made 
 such discoveries as he had expected of copper and 
 other minerals. So valuable were they that the 
 attention of the whole United States was turned 
 toward this rich region. Part of the company, 
 led by Cass, returned by way of Chicago, a village 
 of only ten or twelve houses outside the limits of 
 a well-garrisoned fort, but with a location in what 
 seemed to Cass " the most fertile and beautiful 
 country that could be imagined." 
 
 Six years later Cass was back on Lake Supe- 
 rior making on the site of Duluth important 
 treaties with the tribes of Wisconsin and Minne- 
 sota. In all these treaties with the Indians he 
 insisted on three points. The chiefs should 
 understand fully what they were doing ; just 
 remuneration should be made by the Americans ; 
 and the promises made should be faithfully ob- 
 served on both sides. The flag that he carried 
 into the lake region remained during his adminis- 
 tration the symbol of justice and honor, and won 
 the respect of all. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE BLACK HAWK WAR 
 
 THE settlement of northern Illinois and 
 Wisconsin by American colonists brought 
 on in 1832 the last serious Indian out- 
 break in the lake region. The white men had 
 been pushing the Indians farther and farther 
 west. On the banks of the Mississippi the red 
 men turned and made a desperate attempt to 
 keep possession of the lands which held the 
 homes and the graves of their ancestors. 
 
 Between Rock River in Illinois and the Wis- 
 consin River there lay on the eastern bank of 
 the Mississippi a region which had been known 
 to the white men ever since the visit of Nicholas 
 Perrotin 1690 because of its extensive deposits of 
 lead. Mines had been worked there by the 
 Indians and Frenchmen for two centuries and 
 had yielded a considerable output, which had 
 been bought by French-Canadian traders and in 
 later years by the British. The United States 
 
ao2 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 concluded in 1804 a treaty with the Sauk and 
 Fox Indians, who occupied this country, by 
 which they ceded to the Americans the territory 
 east of the Mississippi River from the mouth of 
 the lUinois at the south to the mouth of the 
 
 FBOM 
 
 LAKE MICHI&AN 
 
 10 
 XHE HISSISSIPPI 
 
 Wisconsin at the north. It had been agreed that 
 so long as the lands remained the public property 
 of the United States the Indians might live and 
 hunt there, but when they were bought by 
 settlers the Indians must move. 
 
 American mining settlements sprang up after 
 the close of the War of 1812, and by 1827 an 
 established coach road, known as Kellogg's Trail, 
 
The Black Hawk War 203 
 
 ran from Peoria one hundred and twenty miles 
 north to Galena, which was in the heart of the 
 mining country. Along this road were occasional 
 groups of cabins, while on either side trails ran 
 oiFinto the wilderness which would have led the 
 traveller who followed them to solitary home- 
 steads and well-ordered farms. In a rich and 
 fertile tract at the mouth of Rock River stood the 
 chief village of the Sauks. It was one of the 
 largest and most prosperous Indian towns on 
 the continent, with more than five hundred fami- 
 lies, and was besides the principal cemetery of 
 the nation. Squatters seized the Indian fields, 
 built their huts on their clearings, and stole their 
 harvests. Until the lands were formally sold the 
 Indians had a right there, and their complaints 
 were just. In 1828, however, the site of the vil- 
 lage was sold, and the tribes were given notice to 
 leave. Keokuk, the chief of the Sauks, crossed 
 the Mississippi with the majority of the tribe and 
 counselled the rest to yield peaceably. A consid- 
 erable number of the Indians remained in the set- 
 tlement, living on the high bluff which has since 
 been known as Black Hawk's Watch Tower, and 
 cultivating the few fields which remained to them. 
 Black Hawk was one of the Indians who did 
 
204 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 not share Keokuk's submissive temper of mind. 
 He was a warrior about sixty years of age, who 
 seems always to have been a restless and discon- 
 tented member of the tribe. He was a tall, 
 spare man, with pinched features, high cheek- 
 bones, and a prominent Roman nose. His 
 black eyes were piercing ; he had practically no 
 eyebrows, and his hair had been plucked out 
 save for a single scalp-lock, in which on occasions 
 was fastened a bunch of eagle feathers. He was 
 a striking figure, and his history bore out in 
 interest his appearance. He had begun his war- 
 like career in early youth. Before he was fifteen 
 he had won in his tribe the rank of a brave, and 
 at that age the scalping of an enemy had gained 
 him the coveted right to paint, to wear feathers, 
 and to dance the war-dance. Since that time he 
 had been involved in every tribal skirmish that 
 had taken place, and he had played a prominent 
 part in the white men's wars. 
 
 In the unsettled period before the War of 1812, 
 Black Hawk had gathered about him a group of 
 two hundred young warriors, who won for them- 
 selves in the war the name of the " British Band," 
 from their support of the British troops. He 
 had fought at the battle of Frenchtown on the 
 
Black Hawk 
 
The Black. Hawk War 205 
 
 River Raisin, at the battle of the Thames under 
 Tecumseh, and after the latter's death he returned 
 to Illinois and carried on there a border warfare 
 which was only ended by his signing at St. Louis 
 in 1 8 1 6 a treaty of peace. Since that time he had 
 made the Rock River village his headquarters, 
 and when the white men began to take up his 
 lands, his smouldering hatred of the Americans 
 blazed out. Returning with a band of warriors 
 from the winter hunting season of 1 831, he was 
 warned off his land. He refused to cross the 
 Mississippi River, and appealed to the Indians 
 to defend the graves of their ancestors. In 
 spite of Keokuk's remonstrances the best young 
 men of the Sauk and Fox tribes flocked to his 
 standard, and his threats excited such alarm 
 among the settlers that Governor Reynolds of 
 Illinois issued a call for volunteers to assist the 
 regular troops in guarding the frontier. There 
 was a prompt response, and when the troops 
 reached Black Hawk's village the Indians with- 
 drew during the night to the west side of the 
 river and signed a treaty never to return to their 
 former homes without the express permission of 
 the United States authorities. 
 
 Black Hawk did not abide by this treaty. 
 
2o6 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 During the winter of 1832 he recruited a large 
 force, and in the spring he crossed the Mississippi 
 at a point just south of his former village, and 
 began a march up the Rock River Valley. This 
 invasion of the state by a hostile band of savages 
 excited great alarm along the frontier. The 
 settlers came in from their lonely farms 
 and built about the larger villages stockades and 
 defences. A call for volunteers was issued, and 
 the enthusiastic response was a surprise, even to 
 the governor who summoned them. 
 
 One of the first to enlist was Abraham Lincoln, 
 an Illinois citizen of two years' standing. He 
 had come with his family in his seventh year from 
 Kentucky to Indiana and thence in 1830 to the 
 newer settlements of Illinois. He was twenty- 
 three years old, and was a tall, sturdy backwoods- 
 man, who was to prove himself in the wrestling 
 matches that were the soldiers' pastime, the 
 strongest man but one in the whole army. He 
 was at once chosen captain of his company, an 
 honor which brought him more gratification than 
 most of his greater successes. The volunteers 
 were organized into four regiments, and started 
 to follow Black Hawk up the Rock River. 
 The command of four hundred regulars was given 
 
The Black Hawk War 207 
 
 to Colonel Zachary Taylor, afterwards President of 
 the United States ; and during the months of this 
 war there served in the army Robert Anderson, 
 the defender of Sumter, Winfield Scott, Albert 
 Sidney Johnston, the Confederate hero, and 
 Jefferson Davis. It was a distinguished group of 
 men who responded in their youth to the call of 
 their country. 
 
 The marching was difficult. There were no 
 roads or bridges, only marshy trails and streams 
 swollen into torrents by the spring thaws. But 
 the hardy backwoodsmen were used to such con- 
 ditions. They marched steadily on, and when 
 they had gone some ninety miles up Rock River 
 to Dixon's Ferry halted to await the arrival of 
 General Atkinson with the regular troops and the 
 loads of provisions. They found there two bat- 
 talions of horsemen, under the command of 
 Majors Stillman and Bailey, which had been 
 gathered in the upper country. They had had 
 no long march to weary them, but were impatient 
 to get a chance at the enemy. They set off as 
 scouts on a dark, threatening morning in May, 
 with orders to coerce what Indians they met into 
 submission. " I thought," says the governor in 
 his memoirs, " they might discover the enemy." 
 And they did. 
 
2o8 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 Black Hawk had been urging the tribes of the 
 Rock River region to join him, but had received 
 so little encouragement that he was almost pre- 
 pared to make peace with the advancing army. 
 He was now a little way up the river with a party 
 of forty or fifty warriors, a body-guard selected 
 from his eight hundred men, who were en- 
 camped seven miles beyond. As the chief sat 
 at supper on the evening of the 14th of May, he 
 was told that a small party of white horsemen 
 was making camp near by. The creek on whose 
 banks the Americans had halted was lined with 
 tall willows, which made a good protection for the 
 camp. The vanguard of the two brigades had 
 stopped, tied their horses to the trees, and begun 
 to build fires for supper when three Indians ap- 
 peared on a height nearly a mile away. It after- 
 wards proved that these Indians were messengers 
 from Black Hawk and were bearing a white flag of 
 truce. The scouts at sight of the Indians rushed 
 out and seized them. Black Hawk and his men, 
 watching at a distance, saw their men captured and 
 prepared hastily to meet and attack the whites. 
 The squads of soldiers who had started in the 
 chase were scattered without any regular order 
 along half a mile of the valley. When the fore- 
 
The Black Hawk War 209 
 
 most of the pursuers came upon Black Hawk and 
 his men hidden behind a growth of brush, the 
 savages dashed out upon them with wild war- 
 whoops. The soldiers thought that eight hun- 
 dred Indians were behind their leader, and scat- 
 tered in every direction. Their officers tried to 
 rally them, but the force was disorganized. The 
 men leaped on their horses and rode away. The 
 Indians, astonished at this sudden development, 
 feared that they were being led into an ambush ; 
 but they pursued the white men, killing those 
 whom they overtook. At one or two places 
 companies of soldiers turned and made a gallant 
 fight, but most of them escaped on their swift 
 horses. By twos and threes they straggled into 
 the camp at Dixon's Ferry, twenty-five miles 
 away, with a story of defeat that spread a panic 
 over the whole frontier. The army marched 
 next day to the scene of the surprise ; but Black 
 Hawk and his men were gone, and it was not 
 thought wise to pursue them farther north with- 
 out a better supply of provisions. The unex- 
 pected and easy victory had encouraged Black 
 Hawk and had brought many Indians of other 
 tribes to his side. 
 
 A reign of terror followed Stillman's defeat. 
 
2IO The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 Scalping parties organized by Black Hawk cov- 
 ered the frontier, making raids on the exposed 
 northern settlements. Many on both sides lost 
 their lives, for small parties of American settlers 
 made gallant defences in their scattered villages 
 and held the Indians back. Three weeks from 
 the time of the first attack a new army of volun- 
 teers, four thousand strong, took the field. They 
 marched to Dixon's Ferry and then plunged into 
 the wilderness, taking every precaution as they 
 proceeded into the enemy's country to guard 
 against surprise. On the 30th of June they 
 crossed the Illinois border near the present city 
 of Beloit, Wisconsin, and came upon abandoned 
 camps and other signs of the retreating Indians. 
 
 The progress through the wilderness of Wis- 
 consin was slow and difficult. Day after day the 
 troops pushed on, wading up to their armpits in 
 mud and water, or hewing away the trees and 
 underbrush that barred their course. After three 
 weeks they came up with the last of the fugitives. 
 Passing through a forest where stands to-day the 
 city of Madison, they came to the shores of the 
 Wisconsin River, and there they fought the bat- 
 tle of Wisconsin Heights. The loss of life among 
 the Indians was heavy; among the Americans, 
 
The Black Hawk War 211 
 
 light. During the night after the battle, the 
 startled soldiers sitting in their camp heard from 
 the direction of the Indian encampment a loud, 
 clear voice speaking in an unknown tongue. 
 They feared that some chief was directing his 
 men to descend upon the camp and make a night 
 attack. After a time, however, the voice ceased 
 and nothing more was thought of the incident. 
 It proved afterwards that this was the voice of an 
 orator sent by Black Hawk to beg for peace. He 
 had used the Winnebago tongue, and as the 
 members of that tribe had left the camp that very 
 day, no one understood him. Thus the second 
 attempt of Black Hawk to make peace failed. 
 
 From this time on the story of the campaign 
 is a tale of relentless pursuit and slaughter of the 
 fugitives. Black Hawk and his starving war- 
 party reached the banks of the Mississippi, but 
 an American steamer prevented their crossing in 
 safety. The troops came upon them at a point 
 called Bad Axe, and for three hours the bloody 
 conflict raged. The white men lost only seven- 
 teen men killed, and twelve wounded. At least 
 one hundred and fifty Indians were killed in the 
 battle and as many more men, women, and chil- 
 dren were drowned or shot down in their attempts 
 
212 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 to escape. Nearly a thousand Indians had crossed 
 the Mississippi at Rock River, two hundred miles 
 below. Barely one hundred and fifty regained 
 the western bank at Bad Axe. 
 
 General Winfield Scott brought home the 
 remaining troops, who were attacked by cholera 
 on the journey and suffered great losses. The 
 Winnebagoes, with whom Black Hawk sought 
 refuge, delivered him over to the Americans, who 
 put him under the guardianship of his former 
 rival, the peace-loving Keokuk. By order of 
 the war department the fallen warrior was taken 
 during the time of his captivity on a tour of the 
 country to see in the east the strength of the 
 white man and realize the futility of further resist- 
 ance by the Indian. On his first trip he went to 
 Washington, was received by President Jackson, 
 and was taken to Philadelphia, New York, up the 
 Hudson, and back by way of the Great Lakes to 
 Rock River, where he was set free. In 1837 
 Keokuk, who did not dare leave him unwatched 
 In his absence, took him to Washington again 
 with a deputation of Sauk and Fox Indians, and 
 on this trip he went to Boston. The experiences 
 of the savage warrior in this eastern city take us 
 back to the time when Champlain took his Indian 
 
The Black Hawk War 213 
 
 host Darontal to the little settlement at Quebec 
 in 16 16, and showed him the civiHzation of the 
 Frenchman. Nothing could portray better the 
 change in the relations of the white man and the 
 red man in the two hundred years that had come 
 between. 
 
 The Indian delegation was received by the 
 mayor, the aldermen, and the common council of 
 Boston at Faneuil Hall. The armories and the 
 navy-yard were visited to show the military power 
 of Bostonians ; a levee was held at Faneuil Hall 
 to receive the ladies who desired to meet the 
 warriors; and on Monday morning, October 30, 
 1837, they were formally received in the Hall of 
 the House of Representatives by Governor 
 Everett, attended by his staff and other officers. 
 In flowing and graceful language the governor 
 welcomed the Indians on behalf of the Common- 
 wealth, addressing them in the Indian style of 
 oratory. The chiefs responded, one by one, to 
 his words. Black Hawk in a shrill, clear voice 
 that attracted the attention of the audience to the 
 famous veteran warrior. All thanked the gov- 
 ernor for his kind words and shook hands with 
 him, expressing their desire for friendship with 
 the white men. The party then adjourned to the 
 
214 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 Boston Common, where they performed a series 
 of war-dances in the presence of an immense 
 crowd; and in the evening they went to the 
 Tremont Theatre to see " The Banker of 
 Bogota," which was being played there. With 
 this scene the picture of the life of the last great 
 Indian warrior of the lake region ends. Black 
 Hawk returned to his home and died the next 
 year at the age of seventy-one, in a reservation at 
 Des Moines, Iowa, set apart for him and his few 
 remaining followers. The Indians had been 
 humbled and defeated. 
 
 The Black Hawk War called national attention 
 to the western country. The troops had explored 
 a wilderness httle known to the Americans, and 
 the story of their march into Wisconsin had been 
 published in full in the newspapers of the East. 
 Guide-books were issued, painting in brilliant 
 colors the charms of the region, and a tide of 
 westward immigration followed the sale of public 
 lands by the government. Northern Illinois 
 gained a large population, and Wisconsin was 
 made a territory within four years. The founda- 
 tion of the lake states had been laid; the North- 
 west had been Americanized. 
 
PART III 
 OCCUPATION AND DEVELOPMENT 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 GATEWAYS OF THE GREAT LAKES 
 
 THE Great Lakes are entered from the 
 outer world by a series of natural gate- 
 ways extending from the mouth of the 
 St. Lawrence to the westernmost end of Lake 
 Superior. With a shrewd instinct the savages 
 selected these spots as the centres for their forest 
 trails and as the crossing places over which they 
 could carry their boats from river to lake and lake 
 to river. At these points the French and Eng- 
 lish erected stockades and forts around which 
 gathered small settlements. Americans, entering 
 at the beginning of the nineteenth century into 
 possession of the country, built there the towns 
 and cities which to-day command the commerce 
 of the Great Lakes. With the founding of these 
 cities the period of permanent occupation begins. 
 The French approached the Great Lakes from 
 Quebec and Montreal. Because of Iroquois hos- 
 tiHty they avoided the southern route by Niagara 
 
 217 
 
21 8 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 and along Lake Erie, and ascended instead the 
 Ottawa River, crossed Lake Nipissing, and 
 passed through Georgian Bay into Lake Huron. 
 At Sault Ste. Marie and Mackinac they built 
 their missions and trading posts. Here Mar- 
 quette and Joliet heard tales of the great river to 
 the south and the rich copper country to the west, 
 and from these centres the French explorers started 
 on their expeditions into Wisconsin, Illinois, and 
 Indiana. Before the English had explored more 
 than a narrow strip of seaboard the French were 
 travelling up the Fox-Wisconsin rivers to the 
 Mississippi, or by way of the Chicago and Illinois 
 rivers to the southern country. Returning parties 
 often proceeded by way of the Kankakee River 
 to the St. Joseph, or by the Wabash and the 
 Maumee to Toledo on Lake Erie. 
 
 Frontenac saw the importance of occupying the 
 strategic points on the lakes. He himself went 
 up the St. Lawrence River and planted on the 
 site of Kingston the fort that bore his name. 
 He encouraged La Salle to build a trading post 
 at Niagara, and did all in his power to gain Lake 
 Erie and Lake Ontario for the French. Grad- 
 ually the French succeeded in making their way 
 eastward. They occupied the strait of Detroit, 
 
Gateways of the Great Lakes 219 
 
 and built forts at Sandusky, Presque Isle (Erie), 
 Niagara, Oswego, and Toronto. The English 
 seized these forts and planted many more. 
 When the Americans in their turn took posses- 
 sion, and Wayne's treaty of Greenville gave, in 
 1796, some assurance of safety in the region, they 
 sent out not only soldiers but colonists and 
 settlers. Their story is the tale of the beginning 
 of our modern civilization. 
 
 In the early days of the American Revolution, 
 Congress suggested to the states that they should 
 cede their claims to lands west of the Allegheny 
 to the central government ; but many years 
 elapsed before the United States gained from 
 the eastern states these cessions. Of all the 
 states Connecticut had the best claim ; in making 
 its cession it reserved a triangular bit of country 
 on the southern shore of Lake Erie, west of 
 Pennsylvania, which was known as the Western 
 Reserve. Before long a Connecticut land com- 
 pany bought three million acres in this tract at 
 forty cents an acre, and in the spring of 1796 
 Moses Cleveland with fifty associates set out to 
 plant on the shores of Lake Erie the colony of 
 New Connecticut. They decided to found their 
 first settlement at the mouth of the Cuyahoga 
 
220 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 River, which was the terminus of several trails, 
 notably that which led to Akron, Ohio, and 
 south to Marietta. At this spot, on the 2 2d 
 of July, 1796, they began to build their houses, 
 where stands to-day the city of Cleveland, and 
 so rapid was the growth of this region that in 
 four years' time there were thirty-two settlements 
 within the limits of the Connecticut Reserve. 
 
 Massachusetts ceded to the United States her 
 claims to lands wfcst of Pennsylvania, but retained 
 her right to lands in what is now western New 
 York. In 1788 she sold to a company of New 
 Yorkers a large part of these lands, including 
 the Genesee Valley. At this time there was but 
 one white man's cabin between Oswego and Fort 
 Niagara. The falls of the Genesee attracted 
 settlers, because there they could build mills for 
 grinding corn and sawing lumber. Colonel 
 Nathaniel Rochester, with three other Maryland 
 gentlemen, purchased in 1802 one hundred acres 
 at this point, including the site of this mill, and 
 laid out a village, opening the sale, of lots in 
 181 1. He moved to his land in 18 18, the little 
 village was named after him, and before many 
 years became a prosperous town. 
 
 Buffalo was founded by Joseph Ellicott, 
 
Gateways of the Great Lakes 221 
 
 brother of the first surveyor-general of the 
 United States. He laid out the town on the 
 plan of Washington city, with broad, radiating 
 avenues, and gave to them Dutch names, as Vol- 
 lenhoven and Schimmelpennick, calling the vil- 
 lage New Amsterdam. When the town was 
 incorporated in 18 10, the inhabitants renamed 
 it Buffalo, according to the old Indian name for 
 the creek which makes into the lake at this point. 
 The prosperity of Buffalo and Rochester, and 
 of Oswego, which was incorporated as a village 
 in 1828, was assured by the building of the Erie 
 Canal system in 1825. 
 
 In spite of her hundred years of history De- 
 troit began life anew under American rule. In 
 1805 the town caught fire, and within four hours 
 the old French settlement was gone. Of two 
 hundred buildings within the stockade, only one 
 was left standing. The newly elected officers 
 of Ohio Territory reached Detroit the day after 
 the fire to find the town wiped out, and in a 
 few years the American Detroit v/as laid out 
 and built up on the favorite plan of the city of 
 Washington. 
 
 The western lakes had been the first to be ap- 
 proached by Frenchmen coming from the north ; 
 
222 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 they were the last to be settled by Americans 
 coming from the Atlantic seaboard. But when 
 their importance came to be recognized their 
 cities sprang up with_ amazing rapidity. By the 
 treaty of Greenville the Indians ceded to the 
 white men, along with other territory, " one piece 
 of land six miles square at the mouth of the 
 Checagau River." This spot had always been a 
 centre for Indian tribes and for fur trade. In 
 1 82 1 Governor Cass bought from the Indians 
 this part of Illinois and the state of Michigan. 
 Trade with the Indians attracted a few settlers 
 to Chicago during the next few years, and in 
 1833 twenty-eight electors met and chose trustees 
 to administer public affairs. They established 
 a free ferry across the river, reconstructed and 
 strengthened the log jail, and built for twelve 
 dollars an estray pen for lost animals, and thus 
 the town of Chicago began. Four years later it 
 became an organized municipality with a popula- 
 tion of four thousand. It was the centre of one 
 of the land-booms which collapsed in the panic 
 of 1837, and suffered for many years thereafter 
 a succession of disasters. Floods swept the low 
 ground on which the town was built, which has 
 since been elevated ; cholera, droughts, and 
 
Gateways of the Great Lakes 223 
 
 financial panics came upon her but were unable 
 to conquer. From the great fire of 1871 Chicago 
 rose once more to justify the opportunities of her 
 location and to become the leading city of the 
 Great Lakes. 
 
 
 s- 
 
 
 GATEWA7S OF THE LAKES 
 
 ^Duli^th 
 
 
 O:^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 S^vronI '^^gT^ 
 
 
 \ ^ i 
 
 MUwaukeel ^4 / 
 
 
 
 V 
 
 CW<as\^ 
 
 Toleap*«>Bfc,„«<S<^ (. 
 
 The Black Hawk War opened up in 1832 the 
 southern part of Wisconsin. Land along the 
 Milwaukee River was purchased by the Indians, 
 and in 1835 the first white owners began their 
 homes. In the summer of 1836 there was a rush 
 of immigration. Sixty buildings were put up in 
 the seven months, and more would have been 
 erected if lumber could have been obtained. 
 Streets were graded, ferries established, and on 
 July 14 the first number of the first newspaper 
 of Milwaukee issued a call to "all good men and 
 true" to assemble and petition the governor to 
 
224 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 appoint officers of law for the township. That 
 winter seven hundred people stayed in the town, 
 and three years later the canal from Rock River 
 to Milwaukee made the town an eastern gateway 
 for the trade of the new territory of Wisconsin, 
 which was at that time notably wealthy in furs. 
 In 1846 the town became a city. 
 
 Through the entire struggle for possession of 
 the Great Lakes, Mackinac and Sault Ste. Marie 
 had kept their positions as trading centres 
 and points for military defence. No permanent 
 settlement was made west of these posts for many 
 years. Nearly two centuries before the city of 
 Duluth was founded, Daniel Greyselon Du Luth 
 was leader of an expedition organized by French 
 merchants of Quebec and Montreal to trade with 
 the Indians. In the course of his dealings with 
 the tribes he held an important conference at the 
 head of the lake, where a trading post was later 
 established on land now a part of the city of 
 Superior, Wisconsin, opposite the city of Duluth. 
 This trading station was owned by the North- 
 western Fur Company, and was an important 
 meeting-place for white men and Indians. In 
 1826, on his second western trip. Governor Lewis 
 Cass concluded at this Minnesota outpost a treaty 
 
Gateways of the Great Lakes 225 
 
 with the Indians, giving to the United States the 
 right to explore and carry away any minerals that 
 might be found in the country bordering on the 
 lake. To gain this important concession the 
 commissioners determined to do all they could to 
 impress the tribes with the power and majesty of 
 the United States' representatives. In barges 
 from which the Stars and Stripes were gayly fly- 
 ing, and to the tune of " Hail Columbia," played 
 by a military band, the treaty-makers sailed into 
 the harbor amid the shouts and cheers of the 
 Indians on the shore. The treaty was signed, 
 and later agreements also made on this spot gave 
 to the government the remainder of the country. 
 By 1850 there were permanent settlers at the 
 head of the lake as well as lumbermen all along 
 the St. Croix River. Congress appropriated in 
 1854 money to build a road to connect Lake 
 Superior by the St. Croix Valley with the Missis- 
 sippi River. The settlers at Superior, Wiscon- 
 sin, were bitter rivals of those at Duluth. In 
 order to be sure to get the road they cut a road 
 southward from Superior to meet it and bring 
 it out on the Wisconsin side of the St. Louis 
 River. In this way Superior got the start of 
 Duluth, but the latter was incorporated in 1857, 
 
 Q 
 
226 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 and became before many years a prosperous 
 city. 
 
 By the middle of the nineteenth century 
 Duluth, the most remote gateway of the Great 
 Lakes, had begun its history as a town. In 1825 
 Henry Clay, speaking on the bill to grant lands 
 for the building of the Soo Canal, had mentioned 
 these great waterways as "beyond the furthest 
 bounds of civilization, — if not in the moon." 
 Six years later Edward Everett enunciated the 
 principle of the future, declaring that "intercourse 
 between the mighty interior West and the sea- 
 coast is the great principle of our commercial 
 prosperity." The cities of the Great Lakes — 
 Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, 
 and Duluth — recognized their opportunity to 
 become the connecting links in this inevitable 
 chain of intercourse. Their sites were strategic, 
 but they had much to do to meet the demands of 
 the rapidly increasing commerce. Their citizens 
 were alert and eager to fulfil these demands. 
 Buffalo gained her position as the terminus of the 
 Erie Canal because public-spirited citizens gave 
 bonds that her harbor should be improved. 
 Every city spent large sums in constructing and 
 improving her natural facilities. The fresh needs 
 
Gateways of the Great Lakes 227 
 
 of every new decade have been met, and to-day 
 the lake system is on the eve of even greater 
 achievements. 
 
 These cities have a background of which they 
 may well be proud, — a background of men 
 who, in pioneer times of hardship and poverty, 
 were men of prescience, of courage, and of action. 
 To-day the six cities have a population of nearly 
 four million people. United by their common 
 bond of harborage on the Great Lakes, but situ- 
 ated in six states of the Union, these cities and 
 their smaller neighbors are taking a prominent 
 part in the nation. Men of vision and of energy 
 still walk their streets, planning and guiding their 
 present and future. Their sites are being beauti- 
 fied and improved; their social and economic 
 problems are being solved; and they are keeping 
 themselves fit gateways for the prosperous states 
 they represent on the great inland seas of North 
 America. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE STORY OF A ROAD 
 
 AS the Indian read in the signs of the trail 
 — the depth of a moccasin print or the 
 direction of a broken twig — the story 
 of those who had journeyed over the path before 
 him, so we can find in the tale of successive kinds 
 of roads the record of the advance of the white 
 man into the West. For roads the French traders 
 used those of the original occupants of the land, — 
 the buffalo tracks and the Indian trails. English- 
 speaking settlers, coming from the Atlantic sea- 
 coast, used two main routes. They came either 
 by river and portage up the Ohio and its 
 various tributaries to Presque Isle on Lake Erie, 
 or from Albany across western New York to 
 Niagara. The story of early voyages and of the 
 founding and life of Detroit gives a picture of 
 French exploration and settlement ; in like man- 
 ner there is written in the rapid change of the 
 land and water thoroughfares across New York 
 
 228 
 
The Story of a Road 229 
 
 State, from Indian trail and river course to turn- 
 pike, canal, and railroad, the tale of the settlement 
 of the lake region, and of the change from a wil- 
 derness to a thickly populated country. 
 
 As soon as the explorer landed on the southern 
 shores of Lake Erie, Lake Michigan, and Lake 
 Superior, he came upon buffalo roads or "traces." 
 Sometimes these were narrow ditches, a foot wide 
 and from six inches to two feet deep, trodden 
 down by the impact of thousands of hoofs as herd 
 after herd of buffaloes had stamped along in single 
 file behind their leaders. When the first path 
 became too deep for comfort because of repeated 
 travel, the buffaloes would abandon it and begin 
 a second path alongside the first, and thus the 
 frequented traces would be gradually widened. 
 Again an immense herd of these heavy animals 
 would crash through the forest, breaking in their 
 rapid progress a broad, deep road from one feed- 
 ing-ground to another. As this route would be 
 followed again and again by this and other herds, 
 it would become level and hard as rock, so that 
 there was great rejoicing in pioneer settlements 
 when the weary road-makers, struggling with log 
 causeways and swampy hollows, came upon a 
 firm, solid buffalo trace. Nor was this an un- 
 
230 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 common experience. The line of many of these 
 roads is followed to-day by our railroads and 
 canals as it was followed in the middle period by 
 log roads and turnpikes. The buffalo was a good 
 surveyor. He did not reason out why he should 
 go in a certain direction, but his sure instinct took 
 him by the easiest and most direct paths over 
 high lands and low to the salt licks and water- 
 courses which were his goal. Indeed, he observed 
 precisely the principles which govern to-day the 
 civil engineer. He followed the level of the val- 
 ley ; he swerved around high points wherever it 
 was possible, crossing the ridges and watersheds 
 at the best natural divides and gorges; and he 
 crossed from one side of a stream of water to the 
 other repeatedly in order to avoid climbing up 
 from the level, after the fashion of our modern 
 loop railways. 
 
 Not so conspicuous, but more numerous, were 
 the Indian trails. Where their destination was 
 the same the Indians used the buiFalo roads, but 
 their own paths were quite distinct. These were 
 narrow foot-paths, usually from twelve to eighteen 
 inches wide, through which the Indians travelled 
 single file. Three things were necessary for an 
 Indian trail : it must be secluded, hidden if pos- 
 
The Story of a Road 231 
 
 sible from hostile eyes ; it must be direct ; and it 
 must be dry. Over these narrow lanes the trees 
 and bushes interlaced so closely that it was impos- 
 sible to see more than a rod or two ahead, and a 
 neglected path soon became impassable. To 
 know which paths could be traversed at each season 
 of the year, and where storm, flood, or fire were 
 likely to have had the least effect, and to be able 
 to follow the forkings and windings of these forest 
 routes, was to be skilled in the art of the woods- 
 man and to be valuable as a guide. 
 
 Like the buffalo traces the Indian paths were 
 often worn deep, almost always six inches and 
 sometimes a foot. So well-travelled was the 
 Indian trail of our story, the Iroquois trail across 
 New York, that it was called by the Jesuit fathers 
 " The Beaten Road." That buffalo came as far 
 east as the present city of Buffalo, New York, is 
 beyond question. Whether they penetrated 
 farther into the interior of the state is not known, 
 but in every other respect this region had each 
 kind of road in turn. It is not only one of the 
 main thoroughfares of travel, but is also a typical 
 scene of pioneer adventure and achievement. 
 
 The main Iroquois trail led from Albany, the 
 eastern door of the " Long House," to Niagara, the 
 
232 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 western door. It followed the natural geographi- 
 cal route along the Mohawk Valley to Schenec- 
 tady, Utica, and Rome, where stood the great 
 Mohawk "castles," and turned from this point 
 south to Onondaga (Syracuse), the centre of the 
 confederacy, and westward by the heads of Lake 
 Seneca and Canandaigua to Lewiston and Niagara. 
 
 ■<S^-,Xi """°"^r^™^i^I10I>(ia'^ 
 
 T? Batavla Avon 
 
 ay ' 
 
 Lakn StMca 
 
 •aha Cayuga 
 BY TRAIL AND TltTENPIKE TO JJIAKE ERIE 
 
 Trail 
 
 ——- TurnpHa 
 
 It is unusual among Indian trails because it was 
 notably a peace-path. The Six Nations rarely 
 quarrelled among themselves, but kept up an 
 interchange of goods and gossip that was remark- 
 able among savages. Runners were trained to 
 carry summonses to councils and to spread the 
 news. It was said that it took only three days 
 and three runners to send a message from one 
 door of the " Long House " to the other, from 
 Albany to Niagara, a distance of three hundred 
 miles, each Indian being expected to make in a 
 day his " century run." 
 
The Story of a Road 233 
 
 Along the Hne of this trail the American 
 pioneer built, in the twenty years from 1785 to 
 1815, his log roads and turnpikes. They were 
 crude, rough affairs, "very grievous to the limbs," 
 and called forth the maledictions of the travellers 
 who ventured off the usual routes into the out- 
 skirts of civilization. As the district grew more 
 populous the roads came gradually under state 
 control. Commissioners and improvement com- 
 panies connected and made better the separate 
 stretches of highway. In 1794 the legislature 
 passed a law, directing the state road to be ex- 
 tended from Fort Schuyler (Utica) to the Gen- 
 esee River, and four years later it was voted to 
 extend it " westward to the extremity of the 
 state." This western end of the road, from the 
 Mohawk River to Lake Erie, was, as it happened, 
 incorporated by the state under the name of "The 
 Genesee Turnpike " in 1 800 before that from 
 Albany to the Mohawk was given formal recog- 
 nition. We have thus the unusual spectacle of a 
 road established ipi the remote sections of the 
 country before the connecting road to the nearest 
 city is completed. To raise money for its con- 
 struction all kinds of methods had been used, 
 from government appropriations to lotteries. 
 
234 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 The method of road-building in the pioneer 
 settlements was one that developed throughout 
 the colonies, as here in New York, into the 
 establishment of turnpike roads. At first the 
 local governments, the townships, or counties, 
 built the roads. As these became inadequate, 
 corporations of individuals were given permission 
 to build roads and charge tolls for their use. 
 The name of turnpike was given to these private 
 highways because at the place where toll was to 
 be collected there was placed a gate hung in such 
 a way as to turn on a post. This gate was made 
 of a long pole and could be swung across the 
 road to stop carriages, animals, and people till 
 the toll fees had been collected. When a cor- 
 poration was given a charter, the legislature pre- 
 scribed the number of toll-gates to be set up on 
 the given length of road, and gave the usual form 
 for tolls. The directors were left to fill in the 
 fees in each case. This accepted table of tolls 
 shows the kind of vehicles in use in New York 
 at this time. A one-horse two-wheeled carriage 
 was called a sulky, chair, or chaise. A chariot, 
 coach, coachee, or phaeton might be drawn by 
 one horse, but was more commonly specified to 
 have two. Stage-wagons, stages, and other four- 
 
The Story of a Road 235 
 
 wheeled carriages drawn by two horses had their 
 separate fee. Just as our highway commissioners 
 of to-day encourage wide tires because they put 
 less wear on the road, so in these days there was a 
 rule that carriages with tires twelve inches wide 
 should pay no tolls, nine-inch tires should ex- 
 empt the vehicle from three-quarters of the tolls, 
 and six-inch from one-half. It was required that 
 the table of tolls be posted in a conspicuous 
 place over the gate. 
 
 In March, 18 13, Nathaniel Rochester and 
 other gentlemen were given permission to form 
 a turnpike company for a road from Canandaigua 
 to the falls of the Genesee River. As this was 
 not a thickly settled region the table of tolls is a 
 simple one without elaborate specifications as to 
 the kinds of carriages and with only two toll- 
 gates, but as part of our historic road it is of 
 special interest. 
 
 Table of Tolls of Rochester Turnpike Company, 
 
 March ji, 1813 
 
 Cents 
 For every cart, wagon, or other wheeled carriage, drawn 
 
 by 2 horses, mules, or oxen \7,\ 
 
 And for each additional horse, mule, or ox ... . 6 
 For every cart, wagon, or other two-wheeled carriage 
 
 drawn by i horse or mule 9 
 
236 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 Cents 
 
 For every horse rode, led, or driven 6 
 
 For every four-wheeled pleasure carriage or wagon 
 
 drawn by z horses 25 
 
 And for each additional horse 6 
 
 For every sleigh or sled drawn by I horse, mule, or ox 6 
 
 And for every additional horse, mule, or ox ... . 6 
 
 For every score of horses, mules, or cattle .... zo 
 And in like proportion for a greater or less number 
 
 For every score of sheep or hogs 8 
 
 And in like proportion for a greater or less number 
 
 In the next chapter the experiences of two 
 travellers are given, the first in 1796, the second 
 in 181 1. The two accounts of their journeys 
 show the wonderful transformation wrought along 
 the line of this highway in fifteen years. By the 
 end of the first decade of the nineteenth century 
 New York State had one hundred and thirty-one 
 turnpikes, and our second traveller was constantly 
 hearing discussion of a new project to which the 
 enterprising leaders of the state were turning 
 their attention. For purposes of trade the new 
 land route had never supplanted the old water- 
 ways. With the rapid occupation of the region 
 of the Great Lakes this trade was increasing at a 
 surprising rate, and much of it was being di- 
 verted to the English merchants of the St. Law- 
 
The Story of a Road 237 
 
 rence River, because of the greater facility of the 
 route to Montreal over that to New York. It 
 cost only a dollar and a half to send a barrel of 
 flour from Cayuga in western New York to 
 Montreal, while it took at least two dollars and a 
 half to get the same barrel from Cayuga only as 
 far as Albany. If this were true of western New 
 York, it was even more true of the southern 
 shores of the Great Lakes. 
 
 Only an artificial canal could overcome the 
 natural obstacles to water transportation, and this 
 the leading men of New York were urging with 
 all their power. Since 1792 the Western Inland 
 Lock Navigation Company had been seeking 
 systematically to improve the existing water route 
 by building canals around the worst obstructions 
 to navigation, the various falls and rapids of the 
 Mohawk River. From the success of these small 
 ventures and the no less convincing evidence of 
 the ability of the canal to solve the whole prob- 
 lem, came in the minds of Gouverneur Morris, 
 Jesse Hawley, and others the plan to connect the 
 Atlantic with the lakes by an artificial waterway. 
 To Governor De Witt Clinton and his associates 
 belongs the credit of working out this stupendous 
 undertaking. The story of its progress and 
 
238 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 achievement is too long a tale to be summarized 
 here, but must be reserved for another chapter. 
 In 1825 the Erie Canal of three hundred and 
 sixty-three miles was completed and opened with 
 appropriate ceremonies. 
 
 The turnpike had followed the line of the old 
 Iroquois trail. The canal had followed it in cer- 
 tain sections but had swerved off and gone north- 
 ward along a minor Indian trail which passed 
 over a natural highway formed by a wide ridge 
 from four to six miles inland from the shores of 
 Lake Ontario. This was what was called by the 
 pioneers the Ridge Road from Lewiston to 
 Rochester. One more kind of road was destined 
 to cross the state, supplanting the lumbering 
 stage-wagon and the slow canal-boat for the pur- 
 poses of travel, and even as time went on for the 
 carrying of freight. The first piece of railroad 
 to be built in New York State, and one of the 
 oldest in the United States, was the Mohawk and 
 Hudson. It was chartered in 1826, the year 
 after the completion of the Erie Canal, and work 
 was begun upon it in 1830. Seventeen miles of 
 this road, connecting Albany and Schenectady, 
 were opened in 1 83 1 ; the remaining part from 
 Schenectady to Utica five years later. Horses 
 
The Story of a Road 239 
 
 were used when the road was put into operation, 
 so that it was in reaHty little more than a tram- 
 way, but locomotives were soon substituted. 
 The third engine built in the United States was 
 sent from the West Point Foundry Works to 
 this little piece of road. It was called the De 
 Witt Clinton, and was built in 183 1. It weighed 
 three and a half tons where now two hundred tons 
 is not considered especially heavy for an engine, 
 and was fed by anthracite coal. Mr. William H. 
 Brown, who was one of the passengers on the 
 first trip, was so impressed by the appearance 
 of this " singular-looking affair and its equally 
 singular-looking appendages," that he sketched 
 on the back of a letter a drawing of the engine 
 and the passenger-cars, with correct likenesses, 
 which he afterwards enlarged to a picture six feet 
 long which was cut out of black paper in silhou- 
 ette fashion and is in possession of the Connecti- 
 cut Historical Society. Reproductions of this 
 picture give a good idea of the first locomotive 
 and train of passenger-cars ever run in the state 
 of New York. The cars are those which had 
 been used for a year with horses on this same 
 route. 
 
 A great crowd assembled on August 9, 1831, 
 
240 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 to see the train start. The fortunate guests of 
 the road climbed into their seats, the engineer 
 took his place on the tender, a tin horn was 
 sounded, and the train with its five passenger- 
 coaches started off. The outside passengers had 
 no awning or roof to protect them, and as the 
 sparks and smoke were blown back they began 
 to fear for their combustible straw hats and 
 summer garments ; but no accident happened. 
 The passengers had hardly had time to adjust 
 their high beavers and settle themselves after the 
 shock of starting, which had been with such a 
 jerk that they had been knocked into each other 
 and against the low roof, when the train stopped 
 abruptly at the first water station on the road. 
 Here a halt was made and an experiment tried 
 to avoid these unpleasant jerks. The links in 
 the couplings of the cars were stretched to their 
 utmost length, and rails, borrowed unceremoni- 
 ously from a neighboring fence, were bound to 
 these couplings, one between each pair of cars, 
 to hold the coaches steady. This arrangement 
 worked well, and in a short time the train pulled 
 into Schenectady, where thousands of people were 
 lined up to await its coming. 
 
 As in the case of the canal and the turnpike. 
 
The Story of a Road 241 
 
 small sections of the railroad were built first, and 
 finally joined into one long highway. Eight 
 short lines were built in New York along the 
 line of the road to Lake Erie and were put in 
 operation at different times. These lines were 
 owned in 1842 by eleven companies. The ten- 
 dency to consolidation reduced the number to 
 seven by 1850, and then the great era of concen- 
 tration brought them all under the New York 
 Central management. 
 
 From the leaf-strewn path for the moccasined 
 Indian the road of our story has become a part 
 of a system of seventy thousand miles of high- 
 way which replace the turnpikes in connecting 
 the towns of New York State. Its turbulent 
 streams have become the feeders for a great 
 artificial waterway, and an iron-railed road-bed 
 stretches along its route, over which flies a lim- 
 ited train at the rate of seventy miles an hour. 
 The lumbering stage-wagon has given way to the 
 smooth-running drawing-room car. The rivers 
 and swamps are spanned by fine bridges. The 
 story of the road has been one of swift change 
 and rapid advance. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 BEFORE AND AFTER THE TURNPIKE 
 
 BEFORE the nineteenth century, travellers 
 who visited Niagara generally went there 
 by way of Montreal and Lake Ontario, 
 returning to the seacoast by Presque Isle (Erie, 
 Pennsylvania) and Pittsburg to Philadelphia or 
 Baltimore. Occasionally an adventurous tourist 
 struck out from Albany into the " Back Woods." 
 Such an one was Lieutenant John Harriott, an 
 Englishman, who visited whatever parts of the 
 known world he could reach and recorded his 
 journeyings in a book with the suggestive title, — 
 " Struggles Through Life, Exemplified in the 
 Various Travels and Adventures in Europe, 
 Asia, Africa, and America." In June, 1796, he 
 set out from New York on a " tour to view the 
 back lands." He chose the land route to Albany, 
 going the one hundred and sixty miles in a 
 " coachee " drawn by two horses. Albany he 
 describes as a town of " upwards of six thousand 
 
 242 
 
Before and after the Turnpike 243 
 
 inhabitants, collected from various parts. . . . 
 It is the storehouse for the trade to and from 
 Canada and the lakes, therefore likely to flourish 
 and the inhabitants to grow rich." The next 
 morning he set off at half-past five and travelled 
 forty miles by stage through the fertile country 
 of the German Flats, every now and then being 
 obliged to alight and walk for a mile or two as 
 the wagon floundered through a bit of swampy 
 road, or up a steep grade. 
 
 Across wet places were bits of log causeways. 
 These were made of trunks of pine and oak trees 
 laid down crossways layer upon layer, regardless 
 of uniformity of size or the comfort of those who 
 might travel over them. This kind of road was 
 called corduroy because it resembled the French 
 cloth of that name. In drier places, the settlers 
 cut down trees on the line of the road. Six or 
 eight oxen yoked to a plough would stir up the 
 soil as deeply as possible, pulling out or displacing 
 stumps or rocks. The cleared surface would then 
 be smoothed over a little and left to be worn 
 hard by travel. 
 
 The " coachee " or stage-wagon, in which Har- 
 riott travelled over this route, was typical of the 
 region and was not supplanted on this road 
 
244 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 twenty years later, although by that time more 
 modern ones had been put on the Hne between 
 New York and Boston, and New York and Phila- 
 delphia. The body of the coachee was rather 
 long in proportion to its breadth. It had four 
 seats, each holding three passengers, who faced 
 towards the horses. " From the height of the 
 seat," writes a traveller of the time, " it is open 
 all round, and the roof is supported by slender 
 shafts rising up at the corners and sides ; in wet 
 weather a leathern apron is let down at the sides 
 and back, to protect the inmates." The wagon 
 had no door ; the passengers got in by the front, 
 stepping over the seats as they went backward. 
 It was said that these coaches had no outside seats 
 on top, as did those in England, because the ve- 
 hicle lurched and jolted so violently that pas- 
 sengers sitting on them would have been thrown 
 off. The heavier boxes and trunks were fastened 
 behind, upon the frame of the carriage, but smaller 
 articles and the mail-bag were huddled under the 
 seats, to the great annoyance of the passengers, who 
 were frequently forced " to sit with their knees 
 up to their mouths or with their feet insinuated 
 between two trunks, where they are most lovingly 
 compressed whenever the vehicle makes a lurch 
 
Before and after the Turnpike 245 
 
 into a rut." The body of the wagon was sus- 
 pended upon two stout leathern straps passing 
 lengthwise under it and strongly secured before 
 and behind. When these straps gave way, as 
 they sometimes did, the driver selected a stout 
 rail from a neighboring fence. The passengers 
 by united effort thrust in this substitute for a 
 spring and the conveyance jolted on. 
 
 At the end of his first day's journey, Harriott 
 found that the coach in which he was going to 
 proceed had been overturned and broken to 
 pieces, so that he was obliged to stop three days 
 at German Flats Town. As he continued on 
 his way to Fort Schuyler (Utica) he found him- 
 self in a rich country with many new settlers, but 
 as the road steadily became worse and worse, 
 although, as he says, he and his fellow-travellers 
 " alighted safe from broken bones, [they were] 
 most miserably bruised from head to foot." At 
 Whitestown, he stayed several days watching 
 with interest the allotment of land to settlers 
 and visiting the remnant of the Six Nations, 
 some sixteen hundred in number, all that were 
 left of that fierce confederacy that so long had 
 held this region against the white men. 
 
 From this point there was no pubHc convey- 
 
246 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 ance, and Lieutenant Harriott bought a horse 
 and proceeded in company with a young farmer 
 from Massachusetts who was making his third 
 trip westward to conclude a purchase of land on 
 the Genesee River and could therefore serve as 
 a guide. It took the travellers three days to 
 reach Geneva, from which place they journeyed 
 fifty miles to the river and thence to Niagara 
 Falls, seventy miles more through the wilderness 
 following the Indian trails. By making haste, 
 they avoided spending more than one night in 
 the woods. As darkness fell, they made a bed 
 of boughs and kept two fires burning " as a guard 
 against wolves and panthers." Again gaining 
 the Mohawk, he went down-stream in a bateau, 
 managed by five men, which he hired for the trip. 
 On his return, Harriott wrote that " except for 
 a view of the grand falls," there was nothing 
 to reward him for the fatigue of the journey. 
 Fifteen years after Harriott's visit, John 
 Melish, the map-maker, passed over the same 
 route. He had come from Cleveland, Ohio, and 
 Erie, Pennsylvania, to the Niagara River and the 
 town of Buffalo, which had been laid out about 
 five years previously, but already had five hun- 
 dred inhabitants and was rapidly growing. The 
 
Before and after the Turnpike 247 
 
 buildings were mostly of wood, painted white, 
 but there were a number of good brick houses 
 and a few of stone. There were four taverns, 
 eight stores, two schools, and a weekly paper in 
 this town, which Melish prophesied would be- 
 come a great settlement. Already roads were 
 being constructed in all directions, and the 
 Albany turnpike had been brought to within a 
 few miles of the village. As he travelled along, 
 he was surprised to find the country so well 
 settled. The houses were so frequent that the 
 traveller was seldom out of sight of one, and 
 every few miles there was an inn. Lands were 
 all taken up for a mile or so on either side of the 
 road. He constantly met parties journeying 
 westward and from inquiry found that a family 
 of seven could travel in their own wagon at the 
 rate of twenty miles a day, making the journey 
 of six hundred miles from Connecticut to Cleve- 
 land at an expense of seventy dollars. The 
 emigrants would carry their own provisions but 
 would stop at the inns to feed their horses and 
 eat their food. In the course of one day's jour- 
 ney, he met more than twenty families thus pro- 
 ceeding westward. 
 
 Stage fares would have made the trip much 
 
248 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 more expensive. By law these fares could not 
 exceed seven cents a mile, and no fees to drivers 
 were expected. Stage travel was at this time 
 made inconvenient by the number of companies 
 operating only on short sections of the road. 
 Each proprietor took up payment for his own 
 portion of the way, — half a dollar here, seventy- 
 five cents there, — and turned the traveller out 
 of his vehicle when he came to the end of his 
 stretch to wait with what patience he could 
 summon till the next stage appeared. 
 
 As Melish neared Utica, the houses along the 
 road were so thick that it was for a considerable 
 way like a continuous village. Yet here as 
 everywhere on the route, back of the neat white 
 houses with their green blinds and roomy verandas, 
 and the fertile, cultivated plots of ground around 
 them, the land would be covered with stumps 
 from one to three feet high, and the smoke of 
 the clearing fires could often be seen in the dis- 
 tance. The expense of the trip from Buffalo to 
 Utica had been ten dollars and ninety-one cents. 
 
 Melish had made his journey on horseback, 
 although he met many coaches on the way. 
 In 1 8 19 an Englishwoman describes a trip which 
 she made from Albany to Utica in one of the 
 
Before and after the Turnpike 249 
 
 fifteen coaches that made the trip daily. On her 
 way she met the man who eighteen years previ- 
 ously had carried in his coat pocket the weekly 
 mail between the two towns. She found the 
 journey rough, but her companions good-hu- 
 mored, intelligent, and accommodating. She rec- 
 ommended the stage-coach for the traveller who 
 wished "to see people as well as things, — to 
 hear intelligent remarks upon the country and its 
 inhabitants, and to understand the rapid changes 
 that each year brings forth, and if he be of an easy 
 temper, not incommoded with trifles, not caring 
 to take, nor understanding to give, offence, liking 
 the interchange of little civilities with strangers, 
 and pleased to make an acquaintance, though it 
 should be but one of an hour, with a kind-hearted 
 fellow-creature, and if too he can bear a few jolts, 
 — not a few, — and can suffer to be driven some- 
 times too quickly over a rough road, and some- 
 times too slowly over a smooth one, — then let 
 him, by all means, fill a corner in the post-coach 
 or stage-wagon. . . . But if he be of an unsocia- 
 ble humour, easily put out of bis way, or as the 
 phrase is, a very particular gentleman — then he 
 will hire or purchase his own dearborn or light 
 wagon and travel solus cum solo with his own horse." 
 
250 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 This was turnpike travel in the early nineteenth 
 century, and this was the route over which thou- 
 sands of families made their way to the lakes. 
 For years the tide of emigration went on until 
 the story of western New York was repeated in 
 every part of the region, and the wilderness of 
 twenty and thirty years before became the seat of 
 thriving towns and cities. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 THE ERIE CANAL 
 
 SINCE the beginning of the century there 
 had been more or less talk of a canal to 
 connect the Hudson with Lake Erie, and 
 in 1 8 1 6 the legislature of New York voted to un- 
 dertake the building of the Erie Canal. The 
 adoption of this plan and its success were due 
 mainly to De Witt Clinton, who set forth in a 
 carefully reasoned memorial the advantages of 
 the proposed waterway. For years thousands 
 of men had been employed in the work, and 
 many difficulties had been met and solved. 
 Commissioners had been appointed to determine 
 the route which the canal should follow and to 
 oversee Its construction. They conducted opera- 
 tions in three sections, intrusting the job of dig- 
 ging and filling to contractors, no contract covering 
 any large amount of territory. 
 
 The eastern section extended along the line of 
 the Iroquois trail up the Mohawk Valley from 
 
 251 
 
252 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 Albany to Rome. On this part of the route 
 swift streams had to be crossed, and falls and 
 rapids had to be passed. Where the canal crossed 
 creeks and streams, guard locks were built to keep 
 the water from rushing into the canal and over- 
 flowing it. At Little Falls there was such a 
 narrow space between the mountains that rocks 
 had to be blasted to make a bed for the canal, and 
 a wall twenty or thirty feet high, rising from the 
 channel of the Mohawk River, built to support 
 it. Other falls on this section required aque- 
 ducts and elaborate series of locks. 
 
 The middle section followed the line of trail 
 and turnpike as far as Syracuse, and then went 
 northwards to Clyde and Montezuma. It had 
 the greater part of the " Long Level," a sixty- 
 nine-mile stretch from a point east of Utica to 
 Syracuse, without any locks. At Montezuma, 
 near the beginning of the third section, the 
 builders came to the edge of the Cayuga marshes, 
 and here they erected an embankment, nearly two 
 miles long and so high that boats were often sev- 
 enty-two feet above the level of the swamps. At 
 Rochester a great aqueduct was built at the 
 Genesee River. Between Rochester and Buffalo 
 the canal ran for a long distance inside the great 
 
The Erie Canal 
 
 253 
 
 ridge which rises south of Lake Ontario, but at 
 Lockport it crossed the mountains. Here was 
 performed one of the most difficult engineering 
 feats of the whole construction. An excavation 
 was made through the three-mile ridge at an 
 average depth of twenty feet,- and five great 
 locks were built, each twelve feet high, so that 
 vessels were elevated and dropped sixty feet. 
 
 The first surveyors drove along the route of 
 the canal five lines of stakes. The two outer 
 rows were sixty feet apart, indicating the space 
 to be cleared. Between these were two other 
 rows forty feet apart, which indicated the exact 
 width of the canal, and in the middle a single 
 line of stakes marked the centre of the waterway. 
 It was eight years and four months since the 
 surveyors had driven these stakes, amid the 
 mocking laughter of the inhabitants, who thought 
 these dreamers crazy to plant their bits of wood 
 in swamps and forests, on rocky ledges and in 
 watercourses. In spite of swamp fever, which 
 had at one time laid low a thousand men, and in 
 spite of rough tools and almost insuperable ob- 
 stacles, the three hundred and sixty-three miles 
 were at length completed. By eighty-three locks 
 and eighteen aqueducts, covering a descent of 
 
254 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 568 feet from Lake Erie to the Hudson, navi- 
 gation was made open. Sections of the canal had 
 been in use since 18 19, and now, on October 26, 
 1825, Governor Clinton had started on the first 
 trip along the entire length of the waterway which 
 had long been familiarly known as " Clinton's Big 
 Ditch." 
 
 The city of Buffalo was particularly rejoiced 
 over this occasion because the western terminus 
 of the canal had long been in doubt and had 
 only very recently been settled in favor of that 
 town over her rival, the present suburb of Black 
 Rock. Buffalo was located on the shore of 
 Lake Erie at the saJaath of the Niagara River. 
 Black Rock was three miles down the river, and 
 had a good open harbor, in which its citizens had 
 recently built a two-mile pier to protect vessels 
 from the waves of the lake and river. Buffalo 
 Creek had a troublesome sand-bar which injured 
 its harbor, and the Black Rock settlers had built 
 their pier in the hope of stopping the canal at 
 their town instead of having it run on to Buffalo. 
 When the canal commissioners came to decide on 
 the terminus, they were of the opinion that the 
 current of the river was too swift at Black Rock, 
 and that the danger from ice and sunken rocks 
 
The Erie Canal 2.55 
 
 was too great. They would bring the canal to 
 Buffalo if that harbor could be improved. When 
 the pubUc-spirited men of that place heard that, 
 they agreed together that if the canal was brought 
 to their town, they would remove the sand-bar. 
 They clubbed together and on their own personal 
 notes borrowed from the state twelve thousand 
 dollars, a large sum in those days, with which 
 they removed the sand-bar and made a safe 
 harbor. 
 
 A new canal-boat, the Seneca Chief, had been 
 built of Lake Erie cedar for the opening trip, 
 and lay moored in the harbor at Buffalo. On 
 her deck were two paintings, one of the scene 
 which was soon to be enacted, Buffalo creek and 
 harbor with the canal-boat moving away along 
 the canal, and the other representing Governor 
 Clinton as Hercules, dressed in Roman costume, 
 and resting from his labors. At nine o'clock in 
 the morning a grand procession formed in front 
 of the court-house and marched to the head of 
 the canal. Governor Clinton and his staffs, and 
 a group of prominent New Yorkers who had 
 been closely connected with the furtherance of 
 the project, went on board the Seneca Chief and 
 an address was given. Upon the boat had 
 
256 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 been placed two new kegs containing Lake Erie 
 water, which was to be mingled at New York with 
 that of the ocean. The Seneca Chief was to be 
 followed by four other canal-boats, and a fifth 
 craft, which was called Noah's Ark. The last 
 contained, under the title " Products of the 
 West," a bear, two eagles, two fawns, several fish, 
 and two Indian boys, — the counterparts of the 
 " beasts, birds, and creeping things " of the Bible 
 story. 
 
 As four magnificent gray horses pulled at the 
 tow-rope of the Seneca Chief, and the vessel be- 
 gan to move, a signal-gun was discharged, and 
 all along the route the cannon that had been 
 stationed took up the sound and passed it on till 
 the news of the opening was carried to New 
 York in one hour and thirty minutes. New 
 York responded, sending the message back to 
 Buffalo in the same time. 
 
 At almost every town and village along the 
 route the Seneca Chief was met with exercises, 
 dinners, triumphal arches, and illuminations. So 
 steadily was the party welcomed and feted that it 
 took them six days to make the journey to 
 Albany. Two or three of the celebrations are of 
 especial interest. At Lockport the boat was 
 
The Erie Canal 257 
 
 greeted by a salute of guns which had been cap- 
 tured by Perry at the battle of Lake Erie, being 
 discharged by a gunner who was said to have 
 fought under Napoleon. At Rochester a dra- 
 matic ceremony had been arranged. Rain was 
 falling when the guests arrived, but this did not 
 dampen the inhabitants' zeal. They assembled 
 in large numbers along the banks of the canal, 
 headed by eight companies of uniformed soldiers. 
 As the boat approached the great nine-arch stone 
 aqueduct over the Genesee River, the Toung 
 Lion of the West, stationed there " to protect 
 the entrance," pushed out from the shore and a 
 voice hailed the Seneca Chief. 
 
 " Who comes there ? " cried the Young Lion s 
 spokesman. 
 
 " Your brothers from the West, on the waters 
 of the Great Lakes." 
 
 " By what means have they been diverted so 
 far from their natural course ? " 
 
 " By the channel of the Grand Erie Canal." 
 
 " By whose authority, and by whom, was a 
 work of such magnitude accomplished ? " 
 
 " By the authority and by the enterprise of 
 patriotic people of the state of New York." 
 
 At this answer the Toung Lion gave way, 
 
258 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 guns were fired, and amid the cheers of the great 
 crowd the flotilla of boats, with Governor Clin- 
 ton, Lieutenant-Governor Talmadge, and other 
 distinguished men on deck, floated into the spa- 
 cious basin at the end of the aqueduct. The 
 customary procession and address of welcome 
 were followed by a grand ball and illumination, 
 and the flotilla, increased by the Young Lion of 
 the West with several Rochester gentlemen on 
 board, proceeded. 
 
 At Rome, on the 30th of October, the first 
 sign of unfriendliness was encountered. The in- 
 habitants of that place were dissatisfied because 
 the canal did not follow the line of the old water- 
 way laid out by the Western Inland Locks Navi- 
 gation Company, upon which the village of Rome 
 had been built. On the day when the group of 
 boats left Buffalo, the citizens of Rome had held 
 a solemn mourning assembly, and had marched 
 with muffled drums from the old canal to the 
 new, bearing with them a barrel of water from the 
 old which they emptied into the new. Even 
 this mournful occasion had been closed with an 
 appropriate celebration and feast at the hotel, but 
 no warm welcome greeted the travellers on the 
 thirtieth. At Schenectady rain and a spirit of 
 
The Erie Canal 259 
 
 marked opposition met them because it was be- 
 lieved that the Erie Canal would be the ruin of 
 the town. Hitherto it had been the terminus of 
 the Mohawk River route and of the western 
 stage and wagon lines. The opening of a direct 
 water route to Albany would be fatal to all these 
 interests. Only the students of Union College 
 broke through the general disapproval, and did 
 the honors of the town in the pouring rain. 
 That afternoon, November 2, the boats entered 
 the last lock at Albany, and were greeted by a 
 welcoming salute of twenty-four cannon, fol- 
 lowed by appropriate ceremonies. 
 
 From Albany the canal-boats were towed down 
 the Hudson by steamer to New York, where 
 great celebrations had been prepared. " Never 
 before," writes an enthusiastic onlooker, " was 
 there such a fleet collected and so superbly 
 decorated ; and it is very possible that a display 
 so grand, so beautiful, and we may even add, 
 sublime, will never again be witnessed." 
 
 Governor Clinton poured the Lake Erie water 
 into the ocean, another gentleman poured in 
 water from several other places, and the waters of 
 the Atlantic and the Great Lakes were pro- 
 nounced " wedded," joined in indissoluble union. 
 
26o The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 A procession a mile and a half long, the greatest 
 ever formed in America at that date, marched 
 through the streets, a grand exhibition of fire- 
 works was held, and a ball was given in a room 
 made by the joining of an amphitheatre and a 
 circus building, forming the largest ball-room ever 
 used in America. All about the hall the great 
 names of the canal constructors were blazoned, 
 and in the ladies' banquet room a boat made of 
 maple sugar, which had been presented to Gov- 
 ernor Clinton at Utica, floated in a vessel filled 
 with Lake Erie water. At the end of the cele- 
 bration the committee from the West departed 
 for home, bearing a keg of Atlantic water, orna- 
 mented with the arms of the city of New York 
 and the following words in letters of gold : " Nep- 
 tune's return to Pan. New York, 4th Nov. 1825. 
 Water of the Atlantic." When the committee 
 reached Buffalo with this gift, they held the 
 closing scene of the great pageant, mingling the 
 waters of the Atlantic with those of Lake Erie. 
 
 If words, festivities, symbolic ceremonies, and 
 a waterway of commerce could do it, the Great 
 Lakes and the Atlantic were united. The im- 
 portance of the outcome justified the hopes of 
 the canal-promoters. The canal cost nearly 
 
The Erie Canal 261 
 
 eleven million dollars ; but the last debts were 
 discharged in 1836. Commerce increased greatly 
 and was immensely benefited, and within twelve 
 years plans were on foot for enlarging the canal, 
 which were soon carried out. 
 
 Travellers soon found great pleasure in making 
 their western journeys by canal-boat, and the 
 canal became a thoroughfare of travel as well as 
 of trade. That bright and interesting raconteur, 
 Mrs. Anne Royall, went west by this route in 
 1 827-1 828, and left a vivid account of the boats 
 and their method of locomotion. The canal she 
 describes as having a neat railing outside the tow- 
 path, painted white and about four feet high. 
 Within this railing the route was fringed on both 
 sides with beautiful crimson Canadian thistles, 
 which flourished in the sandy gravel. Two 
 kinds of boats passed along this waterway, — 
 packet boats and freight boats. The packet 
 boats, accommodating about thirty passengers, 
 were fitted up with dining-rooms, separate quar- 
 ters for ladies and gentlemen, and rooms lined 
 with berths, as was the custom in all steamboats 
 of that day. The fare, including board, was 
 four cents a mile ; without board, three cents. 
 The prices were thirty-seven and a half cents for 
 
262 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 dinner, twenty-five for breakfast, and twelve and 
 a half for lodging. Mrs. Royall made her first 
 journey from Schenectady to Utica, a distance of 
 eighty miles, passing through twenty-six locks, 
 in twenty-four hours. The boat was drawn by 
 three stout horses, who proceeded at a brisk trot 
 and were relieved every ten miles by fresh horses 
 and a new driver. Freight boats were drawn by 
 two horses or even only one, and took passengers 
 at the same rate as freight, a cent and a half a 
 mile. 
 
 Whenever her boat met another, and this was 
 very often, Mrs. Royall sat in dread of a collision, 
 or at least a tangling of the ropes, but each time 
 they slipped past each other as if by magic. After 
 some watching she saw that the boats going west 
 had the right of way and proceeded as usual, while 
 the boatman of the vessel going east checked his 
 horses till the rope fell for an instant very loose 
 in the water, and the other boat and team could 
 slip over it. The canal was frequently crossed by 
 bridges, which made sitting on the upper deck 
 dangerous ; but when they approached one of 
 these obstructions the helmsman called out in a 
 loud voice, "Low bridge!" and the passengers 
 promptly " ducked " their heads. When the tow- 
 
The Erie Canal 263 
 
 path crossed the bridge instead of going under it, 
 the driver swung his team over so fast that the 
 movement of the boat was barely slackened. 
 These boats carried the mails, were widely adver- 
 tised for traffic and travel, and were met at every 
 important point by stages connecting with the 
 neighboring towns and villages. This method of 
 travelling was recommended by all as fargreferable 
 to the jolting, overcrowded stage-coach. 
 
 Until 1858 the Erie Canal was the all-important 
 transportation route between the Great Lakes and 
 the Atlantic. Even the coming of the railroad 
 did not take away its trade, and as late as 1862 
 the ton-mileage of canal traffic was more than 
 double the combined ton-mileage of the New 
 York Central and the Erie railroads. Twenty 
 years later canal tolls were abolished and the canal 
 became a free waterway, maintained and operated 
 by the state. Since the 1862 enlargement there 
 has been no permanent improvement of any im- 
 portance of the canal until the present day. With 
 the increase of railroad traffic and the hampering 
 effect of the conditions of forty years ago, — even 
 the same style of boats, and horse towage, — the 
 canal has not been able to keep pace with the 
 railroad, and its traffic has gradually fallen off. 
 
264 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 until it is to-day only two-thirds that of 1868 and 
 less than one-tenth the freight tonnage on either 
 the New York Central or Erie roads. 
 
 A committee appointed in 1899 investigated 
 the condition of the canal and advised enlargement 
 of its bed. Their recommendations were ap- 
 proved by popular vote in 1903, and the enlarge- 
 ment is now in progress. The new canal is to be 
 navigable by steam-towed barges drawing ten feet 
 of water and having a carrying capacity of at least 
 a thousand tons, which is four times that of the 
 largest boat in use on the existing canal. The 
 route is also to be considerably changed. River 
 and lake channels are to be utilized in one-half 
 the new part of the route, carrying the canal north- 
 ward along the line of the Seneca River and Oneida 
 Lake to the Mohawk, and away from Syracuse 
 and Rochester. It is interesting to note that in 
 making use of river and water beds the canal 
 returns more nearly to the route of the old Indian 
 trail. Improved methods of engineering will do 
 away with several locks. At Waterford on the 
 Hudson five locks will take the place of the six- 
 teen now necessary at Cohoes ; at Lockport two 
 locks are to be substituted for five. The minimum 
 depth of the channel is to be twelve feet, and the 
 
The Erie Canal 265 
 
 locks are to be at least three hundred and twenty- 
 eight feet long. With all these changes it is esti- 
 mated that the trip from Buffalo to New York 
 will be cut down from ten days to five, and that 
 a large amount of traffic will turn to the canal as 
 the cheapest and most satisfactory method of 
 transportation. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 THE GREAT LAKES IN 1 84O 
 
 THE decade from 1830 to 1840 witnessed 
 a rush of people to the country of the 
 Great Lakes. As pioneers had poured 
 into New York State twenty years before and 
 changed the wilderness into a settled country, so 
 they came now by hundreds and thousands into 
 Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin, 
 clearing away the forests and building villages, 
 towns, and cities with amazing rapidity. The 
 common phrase of gazetteers of that day about 
 cities like Toledo, Michigan City, Chicago, and 
 Milwaukee is that in 1 830-1 834 this place was 
 " dense forest," or " contained a solitary family," 
 or " was scarcely known," but now in 1 840 it has 
 from two to three or four thousand inhabitants, 
 as the case may be ; and the tale might be re- 
 peated in a lesser way for all the villages and 
 towns of the region. 
 
 In a few years Buffalo and Cleveland changed 
 266 
 
The Great Lakes in 1840 267 
 
 from "remote settlements" to the well-built, 
 luxurious eastern gateways through which rushed 
 a swift and ever-increasing flood of emigrants. 
 Mere words or even figures can hardly convey 
 what this movement of population meant to the 
 country. It was said that in 1838 five thousand 
 people left Buffalo in one day to go up the lakes, 
 and the larger part of them went to stay. In 
 1 8 1 1 Michigan had only nine principal settle- 
 ments, with a total population of under five thou- 
 sand, four-fifths of whom were French; in 1837, 
 when she was admitted as a state into the Union, 
 she had a population of over 175,000, distributed 
 over thirty-one counties, nearly two-thirds of 
 whom were from New England and western New 
 York. Together the five states of Ohio, Indiana, 
 Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin had come in 
 1837 to have nearly three million inhabitants. 
 
 Another picture of the rapid growth of the 
 country is given in the successive additions to a 
 series of " Travellers' Guides," published between 
 1825 and 1840 by Gideon Davison. He wrote 
 for tourists, not emigrants, and entitled each book 
 "The Fashionable Tour in 1825" or whatever 
 the year might be. In the first edition, published 
 in 1825, he included in the western part of his 
 
268 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 journey only an excursion from Albany to Niag- 
 ara, and thence to Montreal and Quebec. Five 
 years later, in the fourth edition, a two-page de- 
 scription of the western lakes was inserted, with 
 a mention of Mackinac and Green Bay, military 
 posts which steamboats from Buffalo occasionally 
 visited during the summer. A footnote an- 
 nounced that steamboats left Buffalo for Detroit 
 every other day, stopping at Erie, Grand River, 
 Cleveland, and Sandusky (cabin fare I15), and 
 a line of boats ran daily to Erie. All description 
 of the lakes is, however, as " the sources of the 
 Niagara, a river inferior in splendor to none, 
 perhaps, in the world," and the account is inserted 
 to give a more adequate idea of the vast amount 
 of water united in this " stupendous river." In 
 1834 the notice of these steamboats which ran 
 every other day to Detroit in forty hours is set 
 in contrast with the conditions of 181 1, when a 
 passage from Buffalo to Detroit required from five 
 to seven days, and the traveller was liable to wait 
 ten days for a schooner and a fair wind. In the 
 seventh and eighth editions, of 1837 and 1840, 
 even fashion had come to recognize the lakes. 
 A full western trip on Lakes Erie, Huron, and 
 Michigan is outlined, and steamers are reported 
 
The Great Lakes in 1840 269 
 
 to leave Buffalo for Detroit daily in 1837 and 
 twice a day in 1840. Had the editions been 
 continued for fifteen years, a trip to Lake Supe- 
 rior would have been included ; indeed, it began 
 to be taken by 1845 ^Y some travellers. 
 
 Davison's guide-books were the most conserva- 
 tive of the many " Companions," " Directories," 
 and " Gazetteers with Immigrant Guides " pub- 
 lished at that time. Although Davison would 
 not send his tourist so far, there was in all these 
 years a rush of western travel on the lakes. A 
 guide-book of 1825, Davison's first year, contains 
 an advertisement of the steamboat Superior, which 
 ran between Buffalo and Detroit from April to 
 November, occupying four days each way and 
 landing passengers at Cleveland and the other 
 main settlements " unless prevented by stress of 
 weather." This steamboat had, besides its prin- 
 cipal cabin, a forward room fitted up especially 
 for families moving westward, where nothing but 
 ship room and access to the kitchen was supplied, 
 and the fare was only seven dollars and a half, 
 one-half the regular cabin fare. 
 
 A landowner from Boston published in 1838 a 
 little book, " Illinois and the West," which aimed 
 to give to others contemplating land purchases 
 
270 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 an account of those of his experiences as a west- 
 ern traveller which might be of value to them. 
 He explained the simple method by which the 
 government divided the new territories and states, 
 and sold lots to newcomers. The whole country 
 was surveyed by five principal meridian lines run- 
 ning due north and south, and intersected by 
 lines running east and west. Parallel in both 
 directions to these main lines ran lines six miles 
 apart which divided the country into so-called 
 townships exactly six miles square. These town- 
 ships were mere geographical divisions and had 
 nothing to do with the political and social system 
 of villages and towns. Indeed, an actual town 
 might happen to be in two or even three of these 
 paper townships. At the government land of- 
 fices, of which there were ten in Illinois, were 
 maps on which these six-mile squares were 
 divided in their turn into sections a mile square, 
 and numbered with the section as a unit. The 
 section was not, however, the unit of purchase, 
 but might be cut according to the wish of the 
 buyer and the character of the land into fourths, 
 eighths, sixteenths, and even " fractions " and 
 " excesses and deficiencies " as proved necessary. 
 The latter divisions were only used when the 
 
The Great Lakes in 1840 271 
 
 regular system had to be interrupted by old and 
 irregular claims, or streams, or parts of established 
 townships. From the agents the emigrant could 
 buy a sixteenth of a section, or forty acres, for 
 fifty dollars. As the western fever sent the first 
 settlers farther west, partially cultivated farms 
 came into the market, and by 1835 ^^^ prices 
 of farms ranged from two to ten dollars an acre, 
 according to the amount of improvement of the 
 property, and by paying the higher prices a new- 
 comer could avoid the first clearing of the land 
 and the erection of a log cabin or frame-house. 
 Such an opening up of country as came in this 
 decade between 1830 and 1840 attracted many 
 travellers to the lake region. By picturing from 
 their various accounts a " Grand Tour " of the 
 lakes as it was taken by many a person between 
 1837 and 1843, we can get the best idea of the 
 various settlements. The traveller usually came 
 up the Erie Canal and started from Buffalo, 
 taking from there one of the well-appointed 
 steamers of from four hundred to seven hundred 
 tons which left in the morning and evening for 
 Detroit. This trip would always be taken in the 
 summer, for during the four or five months when 
 the lake was closed Detroit could only be reached 
 
I'll The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 by a stage journey of three hundred and seventy 
 miles along the shore of Lake Erie. The towns 
 of Erie, Cleveland, and Sandusky were the main 
 stops between Buffalo and Detroit, but between 
 them was a succession of villages which were just 
 beginning to give signs of their future importance 
 as the terminus of some railroad or canal. The 
 steamer sailed along the southern edge of the 
 lake, keeping always in sight of land, and gave 
 the passengers a good view of Dunkirk, a little 
 village which was waiting for the completion of 
 the New York and Erie Railroad, and of the 
 towns of Portland and Erie. This last-named 
 had always been the point at which to turn 
 southward into Pennsylvania, and was now made 
 all the more important by the termination there 
 of the Pennsylvania and Erie Canal, which con- 
 nected Lake Erie with Pittsburg. Between 
 Erie and Cleveland, Conneaut, Ashtabula, and 
 Grand River were the principal settlements. 
 
 "Cleveland had been incorporated as a city in 
 1836, and was rightly considered one of the most 
 attractive cities of the West. Standing on a plain 
 eighty feet above the surface of the lake, from 
 the steamer's deck it made a beautiful picture. 
 Above the roofs of the well-built brick blocks 
 
The Great Lakes in 1840 273 
 
 and the residences in their carefully laid-out rows, 
 towered the white dome of the court-house, four 
 church spires, and the turrets of its hotels. The 
 hotels of the city were particularly praised by 
 travellers. On the roofs of the two principal 
 ones, the " American " and the " Franklin," were 
 towers in which sentinels stood on watch day and 
 night, keeping a lookout for vessels and notifying 
 those below of their approach in time to send 
 runners to the wharf to meet the guests. The 
 remarkable growth of the town in the last few 
 years was particularly attributed to its being the 
 terminus of the Ohio and Erie Canal, making 
 it one of the principal routes of trade and travel 
 from the Ohio. Along this canal a side excur- 
 sion to Cincinnati and Columbus was often made. 
 From Cleveland the boat proceeded with only 
 two stops, at Black River and Huron, to San- 
 dusky Bay, and steamed past the lighthouse and 
 up the carefully staked-out channel to the town 
 of Sandusky, which was at the bottom of the 
 seven-mile inlet. This town had the fresh, bright 
 appearance of all the recently built settlements, 
 with an added air of substantiality which it owed 
 to the abundance near by of good building ma- 
 terial, which had led the inhabitants to erect fine 
 
274 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 stone residences. After a brief stop the steamer 
 ran out of the bay and northward across the lake 
 to the mouth of the Detroit River, passing on 
 the way the islands near which Commodore 
 Perry won his victory. At the entrance of the 
 strait on the Canada side was the town of Am- 
 herstburgh, formerly known as Maiden, and the 
 scene of much fighting in the War of 1812. All 
 the twenty miles of shore from here to Detroit 
 were lined with pretty villas and gardens, many 
 of them of the old French style. 
 
 To the traveller of 1840 as to the tourist of 
 to-day, Detroit made from the water a most 
 pleasing picture. For a mile along the bank 
 of the river and half a mile back from the water 
 stretched regular avenues with large white houses 
 and green patches of gardens interspersed, and 
 in the centre of the city were the court-house with 
 its dome and turrets, the churches with their tall 
 spires, and the blocks of solid brick business 
 buildings. The low-lying French buildings had 
 disappeared, and with them the French atmosphere 
 of twenty years before. Detroit had become in 
 the last ten years a busy port and thoroughfare 
 for the emigrants who yearly composed one-half 
 or even two-thirds of the city population. Even 
 
The Great Lakes in 1840 275 
 
 in 1830 they were arriving by the thousands, — 
 ten, even fifteen thousand in a single season. In 
 May of that year the Free Press of the city an- 
 nounced that besides those arriving by land or by 
 sailing vessels, over two thousand people had 
 come in that one week on the seven steamboats. 
 In 1836 a diligent citizen kept watch of those 
 who came and went, and computed that, in the 
 twelve hours between daylight and dark, a wagon 
 left the city for the interior every five minutes. 
 
 The pioneers who had started out from Detroit 
 in 1 83 2-1 834 to found Chicago and the other 
 towns beyond, had to go in primitive fashion by 
 mail-coach, by flatboats with Indian guides, by 
 schooner, or whatever conveyance they could get 
 for any part of the way. For the traveller of 
 1840 there were three regular and established 
 routes by any one of which he would be 
 reasonably comfortable. One was by steamer 
 through the lakes, but this he more com- 
 monly took on his return trip. A second 
 was by railroad to Ypsilanti, thirty-three miles 
 away, from which a regular line of stages ran to 
 St. Joseph on Lake Michigan, one hundred and 
 seventy miles across the state, and thence by 
 steamer the remaining ninety-two miles to Chi- 
 
276 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 cago. The stages travelled along the govern- 
 ment road (about twenty miles north of the 
 present boundary of the state) and found the 
 whole way lined with tiny hamlets and cleared 
 farms in the midst of dense forests. The most 
 common route lay just south of this with Toledo 
 as a starting-point. The traveller would take 
 the steamer down the Detroit River and along 
 the western end of the lake and go up the 
 Maumee River nine miles to Toledo, a town 
 of three or four thousand people, destined, said 
 the guide-book, to be a place of much impor- 
 tance. As by the other route, he could go thirty- 
 three miles by railroad, this time to Adrian, 
 which was as far as the road had been built, and 
 thence across the state through the newly oc- 
 cupied country to Michigan City, Indiana, which 
 was then the " commercial depot " for the entire 
 northern part of that state. This town was soon 
 to be benefited by a branch from Fort Wayne 
 of the Wabash and Erie Canal, which was 
 then in progress and was to find its outlet at 
 Toledo. This route left only a trip of fifty-five 
 miles by water to Chicago. 
 
 At Chicago the visitor stopped to wonder, as 
 men have stopped to wonder ever since. The 
 
The Great Lakes in 1840 277 
 
 splendid location of the town as a commercial 
 thoroughfare between the lakes and the Missis- 
 sippi had made it an easy victim to the land- 
 boom of 1834 and 1835, ^^^ ^^- Buckingham, 
 visiting there in 1840, was told by persons who 
 had been present at the time that building lots 
 on streets only marked out on paper had been 
 sold over and over again in a day, with an 
 advance of price each time until the evening 
 purchaser was likely, at the very least, to pay ten 
 times as much as the morning buyer of the same 
 lot. Chicago had, however, been able to survive 
 the succeeding panic in 1837, which swamped for 
 the time being several smaller towns. It was now 
 a prosperous trading centre of six thousand 
 people. The town was planned with the sym- 
 metry of all these newly built cities, and the 
 streets were of good width with rows of trees 
 separating the plank sidewalks from the main 
 road. None of the streets were as yet paved ; 
 and indeed many of them had still the green turf 
 of the prairie grass in the centre. So scarce was 
 stone and so high was labor that a small piece of 
 flagstone pavement around the Lake House 
 Hotel had cost nine hundred dollars, — an 
 extravagance which no one else had yet com- 
 
278 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 mitted. On the south side of the river were the 
 stores, many of them built of brick, and the 
 main street was a busy trading mart. There 
 were in the city six churches, four hotels, banks, 
 and insurance offices, and along the water front 
 stretched a growing line of warehouses. The 
 fashionable residential district was on the north 
 side of the river, where were avenues of large 
 villas surrounded by gardens. Between the two 
 parts ran a ferry-boat, drawn across the river by 
 a rope, and passing and repassing every five 
 minutes. This was maintained by subscription 
 among the inhabitants, and no fee was therefore 
 charged for crossing. 
 
 Margaret Fuller spent the summer of 1843 on 
 the lakes, and left a charming account of her 
 Impressions. Chicago she found rather commer- 
 cial, " with no provision for the student or the 
 idler," but she recognized its commanding posi- 
 tion. " There can be no two places in the world 
 more completely thoroughfares," she says, " than 
 this place and Buffalo." They were to her two 
 correspondent valves that opened and shut all 
 the time, as the life blood rushed from east to 
 west and back again. Yet, even in this business 
 place, she saw for the first time in her drives 
 
The Great Lakes in 1840 279 
 
 along the lake shore the beautiful prairie flowers 
 of the West. To her the most picturesque sight 
 in all Chicago were the lines of Hoosier wagons, 
 in which the rough farmers who had driven in 
 from the country camped on the edge of the city, 
 living on their own supplies of provisions and 
 seeming as they walked about the town like 
 foreign peasantry put down among the " active, 
 inventive business people " of Chicago. With 
 the characteristically sharp contrasts of this won- 
 derful new land, the other sight which interested 
 her especially was the arrival of the great lake 
 steamers, magnificent floating palaces of six and 
 eight hundred tons, which "panted in from their 
 rapid and marvellous journey " of a thousand 
 miles from Buffalo. When she went out to 
 watch the lights of these boats as they came in 
 at night she heard as she walked along on one 
 side the Hoosier dialect, on another, cultivated 
 French, and the very next moment the sounds 
 of German, Dutch, and Irish. Then as now 
 Chicago was a cosmopolitan city. 
 
 Miss Fuller found the boats so comfortable 
 that her trip to Milwaukee was a " pleasure 
 party." The beautiful situation of this town on 
 a blufF eighty feet above Lake Michigan made 
 
28o The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 a great impression on all visitors. If the other 
 towns had grown up recently and rapidly, Mil- 
 waukee could be seen in the very process. With 
 a population of only two thousand people, who 
 were erecting buildings as quickly as they could on 
 newly laid-out broad avenues, it had received in 
 one week from Buffalo three thousand emigrants 
 on their way to the interior, not to mention 
 the numbers which came weekly from Chicago 
 and Ohio. Here, as at Chicago, Miss Fuller was 
 delighted at the gathering of pleasant people 
 drawn from all over the world. The great 
 interest of the town was in its new arrivals. 
 Boats came and went every day, and crowds 
 swarmed down to the pier to meet them. The 
 poorer emigrants who landed were taken to rude 
 " shantees " in a particular part of the town, and 
 then walked off the next morning into the 
 country, " the mothers carrying the babies, and 
 the fathers leading the little children." She 
 stayed only a fortnight at Milwaukee, but she 
 declares that had she been rich in money she 
 might in that time have built a house or set 
 herself up in business, so swiftly did matters 
 move there. 
 
 Leaving Milwaukee Miss Fuller went by 
 
The Great Lakes in 1840 281 
 
 steamer, as did all lake travellers, to Mackinac, 
 crossing Lake Michigan and passing near the 
 beautiful western shores of the state of that 
 name. All steamers stopped at Manitoulin Is- 
 land for wood. They could not carry the very 
 large amount of this fuel needed for their thou- 
 sand-mile trips without so lumbering the decks as 
 to lose the necessary space for passengers and 
 cargo. So they must stop at this way-place and 
 pay to the twenty wood-cutters who lived there 
 an exorbitant price for wood enough to carry 
 them the remaining one hundred miles to Mack- 
 inac. As the engines consumed a cord and a 
 half an hour, the decks, immediately after the 
 taking on of a new supply, were heavily loaded 
 down, so that even the windows of the staterooms 
 were darkened until the piles began to diminish. 
 
 Mackinac, or Mackinaw, was out of the path 
 of emigration and had scarcely changed in the 
 last thirty years. Always a centre for Indian 
 traders and American Fur Company buyers, it 
 was doubly picturesque when Margaret Fuller 
 reached there in August, 1843, ^°^ ^"^^^ ^^o 
 thousand Indians had just come in from distant 
 villages and made their camps, waiting for trade 
 and for the annual payments made them by the 
 
2 82 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 government. Of the beauty of the scenery and 
 of the interest of these constantly arriving Indian 
 parties Miss Fuller could not say enough. She 
 stayed there nearly a fortnight, and made one 
 day an excursion by steamer up to Sault Ste. 
 Marie, where two Indians took her in a canoe 
 through the rapids. To all travellers the days 
 on the Strait of Mackinac were among the most 
 pleasant of the trip, but when the steamer came 
 from Chicago they reluctantly bade farewell to its 
 beauties and sailed down the transparent waters 
 of Lake Huron to the strait which led into Lake 
 St. Clair and across that lake to Detroit, and 
 thence back along Lake Erie, as they had come, 
 to Buffalo. 
 
 In taking the "Grand Tour" with one of 
 these travellers, we have gained a picture of the 
 beginnings of the western lake states and of the 
 rapid progress of the eastern ones in a time not 
 remote and distant, but scarcely seventy years 
 ago. The accomplishment of so much in so 
 short a time well deserved the adjectives and 
 encomiums that were bestowed upon it by admir- 
 ing travellers, who little dreamed of the vast 
 changes that were to take place in the century 
 to come. 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 THE COMING OF THE RAILROAD TO LAKE ERIE 
 
 LAKE Erie became in the nineteenth cen- 
 tury the portal of the Great Lakes. To 
 her shores came from the east an army of 
 immigrants pouring into the states beyond, and 
 from these regions, as they became populated, came 
 back an immense volume of produce to be carried 
 to the cities of the east and the south. These 
 conditions led the citizens of the lake shore 
 promptly to adopt any new means of transporta- 
 tion. In its day they had welcomed the turnpike 
 and built many roads into the interior. During 
 the era of canal-building the people of New York, 
 Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana had spent hun- 
 dreds of thousands of dollars on artificial water- 
 ways. In 1 840 five canals over a thousand miles 
 in length, not including their many branches, 
 opened into Lake Erie. The Welland Canal 
 united it with Lake Ontario, the Erie with the 
 Hudson, while the Ohio and Erie connected 
 
 283 
 
284 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 Cleveland with Columbus and the Ohio and also 
 with the Pennsylvania Canal and thus with Pitts- 
 burg; and from Toledo and the Maumee River 
 the Miami Canal went south to Cincinnati, and 
 the Wabash and Erie west to Lafayette, Indiana. 
 This remarkable group of canals had been built 
 
 in twenty years. No less wonderful was the build- 
 ing of railroad lines in the next two decades ; and 
 to us who are accustomed to limited trains and 
 " flyers " the story of the first trains is one of 
 curious interest. 
 
 Ohio and Michigan were progressive in the 
 matter of building railroads. Michigan gave a 
 charter to the Michigan Central in 1830, and in 
 1832, when there were only two hundred and 
 twenty-nine miles of railroad in operation in the 
 
Coming of the Railroad to Lake Erie 285 
 
 United States, the Ohio legislature granted a 
 charter for the construction of a road from San- 
 dusky to Dayton, a distance of over one hundred 
 and fifty miles. These early dates are rather an 
 exhibition of good intentions and foresight than 
 a measure of actual achievement, for neither road 
 was begun until 1837 and then each was car- 
 ried but a few miles. All railroad-building about 
 the lakes until nearly the middle of the century 
 was a matter of crude and small beginnings, but 
 it is these very beginnings which make us realize 
 the transformations that have taken place within 
 less than eighty years. 
 
 The first railroad to be built in Ohio was the 
 Kalamazoo and Erie from Toledo, Ohio, to 
 Adrian, Michigan. This was later bought up 
 by the Michigan Southern road and was the 
 first link in the route to Chicago, taken, as will 
 be remembered, by our traveller of 1840. It 
 was thirty-three miles long and was a typical 
 early railroad. Seven-eighths of it was built in 
 unbroken forest, and one-third through a densely 
 timbered swamp where malaria and mosquitoes 
 made the lives of the workmen miserable. The 
 track was built of oak stringers, or long wooden 
 beams, upon which were fastened strips of iron 
 
286 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 five-eighths of an inch thick and two and a half 
 inches wide. These rails were supported by 
 wooden cross-ties placed about four feet apart 
 and resting securely on a heavy foundation of 
 broken stone. The cars were built after the 
 fashion of the body of a stage-coach, or rather 
 of three stage-coaches put together, and were 
 set on a four-wheeled truck instead of directly 
 on wheels, to make it possible for them to 
 swing round on curves. The conductor walked 
 along an outside footboard to collect fares. 
 These cars opened at either end and seated 
 about twenty-four persons, who faced to the front. 
 On the Toledo road a horse track was laid be- 
 tween the rails, and the road was used for one 
 year with horse power. In 1837 a locomotive 
 was purchased and steam power was substituted. 
 For ten years American builders had been 
 experimenting with types of locomotives and had 
 adopted a pattern which has persisted to this day 
 in its principles, although it has been much 
 changed in details and size. The fore part of 
 the engine was placed on a four-wheeled truck 
 and fastened to it with a bolt, which allowed 
 the truck to swing some distance and thus to 
 round sharp curves safely. The back part rested 
 
Coming of the Railroad to Lake Erie 287 
 
 on four connected driving wheels. An engine 
 of this type had been built in 1836 in Phila- 
 delphia, and was speedily adopted elsewhere. It 
 weighed about ten tons when water and coal 
 tanks were loaded, and would seern to us to-day 
 a crude and small affair, but it was better suited 
 to wooden rails than a heavier engine would 
 have been. Passengers paid four and a half 
 cents a mile to be carried on this Toledo rail- 
 road at a speed of less than ten miles an hour. 
 The leisureliness and timidity of the first trains 
 would seem to us amazing, did we not remember 
 how tiny the engine was, how unstable the road- 
 bed, and how loosely the cars were coupled to- 
 gether by bolt and pin. Twenty years after this 
 first road was built one of the printed instructions 
 to engineers was to be perfectly sure before they 
 pulled out of the station that they had their en- 
 tire train with them and had dropped no cars in 
 starting. At first it was the custom for the 
 engineer to stop the train to collect fares, or for 
 any other urgent business connected with the 
 road. It was many years before the companies 
 dared run night trains. The Michigan Central, 
 which was opened in 1837, found in the autumn 
 of 1 841 that its depots were so loaded with 
 
288 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 barrels of flour and cords of wood that they 
 would not be able to get it all to Detroit before 
 the close of navigation on the lakes. The di- 
 rectors conferred together and hired teams to 
 transport the goods from stations near Detroit to 
 that place. For the long distances they had no 
 alternative but to put one of their four locomo- 
 tives on for night service, but they considered it 
 unsafe and hoped that such extreme measures 
 would not be necessary in the future. When 
 this road had been opened, four years before, an 
 adventurous young man who owned a sorrel pony 
 announced that he was going to race the train for 
 the last mile before it reached Dearborn. The 
 crowds who had been assembled to see the first 
 train come in were much excited over the com- 
 petition, and, needless to say, the pony won. 
 
 After the completion of these and other short 
 roads there was a lull in railroad-building, due to 
 the hard times in the western country which suc- 
 ceeded the panic of 1837. In 1845 and 1846 the 
 legislatures began once more to plan internal im- 
 provements, and a great era of railroad-building 
 began which continued until the opening of the 
 Civil War. In the history of Lake Erie 1851 
 stands out as the year when three of the trunk 
 
Coming of the Railroad to Lake Erie 289 
 
 lines were completed and their opening fittingly 
 celebrated. In that year the first train came into 
 Cleveland, and with the thought of the hundreds 
 of trains that enter its stations daily, let us put 
 ourselves back into the city of 1851 and watch 
 the first train arrive. 
 
 The state legislature had voted to loan to the 
 credit of the city ^200,000 for the construction 
 of the Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati 
 Railroad. In 1851 the road-bed of two hundred 
 and sixty-three miles was completed, and on the 
 morning of February 21 was formally opened 
 by the passage over the road of a party of four 
 hundred and twenty-eight persons, who took the 
 train from Columbus and Cincinnati to Cleveland, 
 the " city of the Lake Shore." The party was 
 made up of members of the legislature, officers of 
 the state, the councils of both cities, and many 
 citizens. The road over which these people 
 travelled was a very different one from the 
 Toledo road of fourteen years before, and from 
 the number of people accommodated it is evident 
 that the passenger coaches were very different, 
 also. Iron rails had taken the place of wooden 
 ones, and heavier locomotives and more comfort- 
 able cars had been built. When the excursion 
 
290 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 train reached the city of Cleveland, thousands of 
 citizens were lined up along the track and about 
 the station and the cannon of the city boomed 
 out a loud welcome to the incoming guests. The 
 party had arrived late in the day, as it was a 
 twelve-hour journey. The next morning a 
 procession of Cleveland people was formed, with 
 General Sanford as chief marshal, to escort the 
 guests to the public square in front of the court- 
 house, where the mayor received them with a 
 speech of welcome. He was followed by Mr. 
 Convers, speaker of the senate, Mr. Starkweather, 
 who spoke for the people of Cleveland, three 
 gentlemen from Cincinnati, and the governor of 
 the state, Mr. Wood, who was a Cleveland resi- 
 dent. Last on the programme came Mr. Cyrus 
 Prentiss, the president of the Cleveland and 
 Pittsburg Railroad, forty miles of which were also 
 opened that day. This road ran to Ravenna, 
 where passengers could take the canal packet to 
 Beaver River, and there transfer to a steamboat 
 for Pittsburg. Mr. Prentiss invited the guests to 
 take an excursion on that road. After that trip 
 they returned to a banquet and grand torchlight 
 procession in the evening. 
 
 In their pulpits on Sunday the ministers dis- 
 
Coming of the Railroad to Lake Erie 291 
 
 coursed on the wonderful event that had taken 
 
 place, the arrival of the railroad, and on Monday 
 
 morning the people gathered from all the region 
 
 round to see the strange iron horse start back 
 
 across the state with its load. Just before the 
 
 train pulled out of the station, one of the visiting 
 
 party sang a humorous song, describing the effect 
 
 of the trip upon the interior regions of the state. 
 
 He told of the delight and astonishment of 
 
 mothers and children in their log cabins, and of 
 
 wood-choppers of the back country as they had 
 
 looked up and seen this " snorting iron horse 
 
 with the long tail" race through the country. 
 
 He ended his song with praise of the governor 
 
 Cleveland had given the state and of Cleveland 
 
 itself, 
 
 "The beautiful city, the forest-tree city. 
 The city upon the lake shore." 
 
 The opening up of the Venango oil-district in 
 Pennsylvania in 1858 brought to Cleveland a 
 large refining and shipping industry, for which 
 it was well fitted by its advantageous position on 
 the lake and its railroads and vessels. 
 
 Two months later a similar occasion took place 
 in the little village of Dunkirk, Pennsylvania, 
 when the New York and Erie road was com- 
 
292 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 pleted. This line crossed the state of New 
 York some seventy miles south of the Albany 
 turnpike and New York Central route, and with 
 its completion the Great Lakes and the Atlantic 
 were once more united and the occasion was 
 celebrated as if such an idea had never entered 
 the minds of any one before. President Fill- 
 more and Daniel Webster, his Secretary of State, 
 with three other members of the cabinet, came on 
 from Washington and took the trip on the first 
 train over the road. In New York City and all 
 along the way there was great excitement, and in 
 the little village of Dunkirk grand prepara- 
 tions had been going on for weeks. The train 
 arrived at four-thirty on the afternoon of 
 May 15. As it rolled into the station the 
 church bells rang, cannon roared, and a salute 
 of thirteen guns was fired from the United States 
 steamship Michigan., which was stationed in the 
 harbor. The cars passed under a canopy of 
 French, American, and British flags, and beyond 
 the engine at the very end of the track was an 
 arch of evergreen and flowers built over an old 
 plough on which was printed the word " Finis." 
 This was the plough used to break ground for 
 the first ten-mile section of the road at Dunkirk 
 in 1838. 
 
Coming of the Railroad to Lake Erie 293 
 
 The distinguished visitors formed in a proces- 
 sion and marched about the town, to be welcomed 
 by the mayor before they entered the huge shed 
 erected for the occasion. Over the table, three 
 hundred feet long, hung two barbecued oxen sus- 
 pended on poles. Upon the table were ten sheep 
 roasted whole. Bread had been baked in loaves 
 ten feet long by two thick, which it took two men 
 to carry. Even the pork and beans were in tin 
 vessels holding fifty gallons each, and barrels of 
 cider were set at intervals along the side of the 
 table. The presidential party looked, admired, 
 and praised — and then returned to the hotel for a 
 collation, leaving the sampling of these triumphs 
 of the culinary art to the other guests of the 
 occasion. 
 
 From the window of the hotel the great men 
 made speeches in the evening. President Fillmore 
 and Senator Douglas leading and being followed 
 by ex-Governor Seward and others. This group 
 was of great interest to the political world as hav- 
 ing six presidential candidates in its ranks — Fill- 
 more, Crittenden, Douglas, Seward, Marcy, and 
 Webster. The last-named was to have spoken 
 that night, but he was so hoarse from previous 
 efforts that he could only say a few words in 
 
294 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 answer to the calls of the people for him, and 
 postponed his speech until the next night. With 
 suitable eclat, the ocean and the lakes were once 
 more " forever united," this time in very truth, by 
 a service which took only twenty hours in contrast 
 to the three days of the Erie Canal. In the words 
 of one of the banners in the hall, " 'Tis done, — 
 'tis done, the mighty chain that binds bright Erie 
 to the main." 
 
 " Bright Erie " was not yet connected as closely 
 as the public might naturally demand, as was 
 shown by the famous Erie war of 1853. On all 
 the roads between what are to-day the great cities 
 of the country there ran one or at most two trains 
 a day. Even on the New York and Erie itself, 
 which was one of the fastest and best equipped in 
 the matter of service, the mail train ran one-half 
 the distance in one day, and then stopped over- 
 night at Elmira before it proceeded on its way. 
 These arrangements made it very necessary that 
 the traveller should make good connections and 
 that the various roads should run in harmony, for 
 each piece was operated by a separate company. 
 Besides this there was another complication. 
 The tracks of different roads were of different 
 gauges or widths, so that the train of one could 
 
Coming of the Railroad to Lake Erie 295 
 
 not by any possibility be run on another. This 
 condition of affairs was particularly bad at Erie, 
 twenty miles beyond Dunkirk, where all pas- 
 sengers had to leave the cars, ride across the town 
 in omnibuses, or walk a mile to the other station, 
 and if connections failed, as they often did, dine 
 or even stay overnight in the town. This state 
 of affairs was satisfactory to the local hotel and 
 baggage men and others who gained from the 
 opportunities offered by a large transfer of bag- 
 gage and people, but it was very annoying to 
 travellers. The railroad manager of the eastern 
 road decided to alter the gauge of his road and 
 attempt an arrangement by which passengers 
 could be carried through direct to Cleveland. 
 He began by buying up all the stock he could of 
 the other line. This was the pioneer attempt at 
 a railroad merger and resulted in one of the most 
 bitter local wars the country has ever known, 
 involving every one in the region and the people 
 of both states in a protracted and very serious 
 struggle. The issue was complicated and inten- 
 sified by state and railroad rivalry, but the whole 
 affair began because the people of Erie were un- 
 willing to be made a " way-station," as they termed 
 it, on a through route and thus lose the commer- 
 
296 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 cial advantages of being a terminus for railroads 
 and steamboat Hnes. 
 
 On the morning of December 7, 1853, the 
 citizens of Erie were summoned by the ringing 
 of the court-house bell. Men rushed to the 
 centre of the town to find that the eastern rail- 
 road company had begun work at the state line 
 altering their road from their four-feet-ten-inches 
 gauge to the six-foot width of the western railway. 
 As the road ran for a short distance through the 
 street of the town the municipal authorities had 
 refused a permit for change, but the company 
 had begun, nevertheless. After listening to im- 
 passioned speechmaking from the court-house 
 steps till it was thoroughly roused, the crowd, 
 led by the mayor, started for the wooden railroad 
 bridge. They found it guarded by employees 
 of the railroad, who were soon scattered by a 
 shower of rotten eggs and other missiles. The 
 mob then attacked the bridge, tore up the tracks 
 and the timber, and returned triumphantly to the 
 city. Two days later a similar mob tore up 
 the track, destroyed the bridge, and ploughed the 
 road at Harbor Creek, seven miles east of Erie. 
 Mob-rule had come in earnest. 
 
 It was two months before a single train got 
 
Coming of the Railroad to Lake Erie 297 
 
 through to any point near these places, and it was 
 three years before the matter was finally adjusted. 
 The courts, and the state militia became involved. 
 State feeling ran high between Ohio, Pennsyl- 
 vania, and New York over the question of their 
 local gauges, and the press of the whole country 
 took sides in the matter. Passengers and freight 
 had to be transferred during the winter months, 
 when the lake was closed, by wagon from the 
 stop east of Erie to the stop west of that town, a 
 process that was called " Crossing the Isthmus." 
 But still the Erie people rallied with the 
 watchword, " Break gauge at Erie, or have no 
 railroad." 
 
 Horace Greeley, going west at this time, had 
 to ride the seven miles across the " Isthmus " in 
 an open sleigh through a severe storm of wind, 
 snow, and sleet, and after that the railroad man- 
 agers and the townspeople were continually 
 denounced in the New York Tribune. " Let 
 Erie be avoided by all travellers," he wrote on 
 his return, " until grass shall grow in her streets, 
 and till her piemen in despair shall move away to 
 some other city." 
 
 Homes of railroad officers and sympathizers 
 were mobbed by the " Rippers," as the opponents 
 
298 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 of the road were called because of their violent 
 methods. The bridge at Harbor Creek was 
 rebuilt by the company four times, only to have 
 it burned or torn down. At last when the whole 
 town was split into bitter factions and all united 
 local spirit was for the time being destroyed, the 
 courts and legislature settled the matter. The 
 railroad company, having made certain conces- 
 sions to Erie interests, was allowed to change to 
 a compromise gauge of four feet eight and a half 
 inches (that of the New York Central road) and 
 run trains through Erie on what is now a part of 
 the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railroad. 
 The great era of consolidation which was to create 
 our transcontinental lines had begun. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS IN CHICAGO 
 
 IN the last years before the Civil War, Illinois 
 became a political storm centre to which 
 the eyes of the whole nation were turned. 
 Reaching farther south than any other lake state, 
 and bounded on the west by the Mississippi 
 River, — the main artery of trade and travel of 
 the south, — she was bound geographically and 
 commercially to the south. But on the other 
 hand she reached north to Lake Michigan, a 
 part of the great system of inland waterways of 
 the North. More than any other state she pre- 
 sented in miniature the condition of the nation, 
 divided thus between north and south. More- 
 over her settlers, moving westward along the 
 lines of latitude, had come from both sections. 
 With a southern sentiment in those counties that 
 were nearest to Kentucky and Missouri, she 
 combined in her upper counties men from New 
 England, New York, and Pennsylvania with the 
 
 299 
 
300 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 strongest northern principles. Seeing within her 
 own bounds the elements of the great national 
 conflict, she became a state whose strongest 
 sentiment was for union, for which in the last 
 analysis all her best political leaders stood. 
 
 Into this state came Abraham Lincoln and 
 Stephen Arnold Douglas when they were young 
 men, Lincoln from Kentucky after a stay in 
 Indiana, and Douglas from Vermont by way of 
 New York State. In Illinois these two men 
 fought out in the decade before the Civil War 
 the great contest of the two national parties of 
 the time. The campaign of 1858, with its 
 famous series of joint debates between them, was 
 opened in Chicago by speeches of Douglas and 
 Lincoln from the balcony of the Tremont House. 
 In Chicago the National Republican Convention 
 nominated Lincoln for President on the i6th of 
 May, i860. To a royal welcome in Chicago 
 Douglas returned in the spring of 1861 after his 
 noble and disinterested support of his elected 
 rival and his patriotic efforts for the preservation 
 of the Union. Here within a few weeks he died. 
 Before we pass to the story of these events in 
 Chicago we must learn a little more of the con- 
 dition of affairs in the lake states during the 
 
Lincoln and Douglas in Chicago 301 
 
 interval since the War of 1 8 1 2. Of the growth of 
 their cities and of their great prosperity we shall 
 speak in detail in later chapters. It is sufficient 
 to say that the movement of population, of wealth, 
 and of power into the West had become so great 
 that the Republicans in i860 considered Chicago 
 the fitting place for their national convention. 
 
 Of the definite problems of the great sectional 
 contest, the lake states had a concrete as well as a 
 theoretic knowledge. They were located on the 
 northern frontier of the United States, and they 
 dipped down from one hundred and fifty to two 
 hundred and sixty miles into the south. Inevi- 
 tably they became the scene of fugitive slave 
 migration. In spite of the strict laws of the 
 United States and the bitter protests of the 
 South, the escaped slave found friends when he 
 slipped over the border into the free states, and 
 was helped by them into Canada, where his safety 
 was assured. Since 1815 there had been a regu- 
 larly organized system of passing these runaways 
 from one place to another on the northern route, 
 a system which so baffled and mystified the 
 unsuccessful masters in their search that they had 
 given it the name of the " Underground Rail- 
 road." The route through Ohio was the short- 
 
302 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 est of these lines. Only a little more than two 
 hundred miles lay between the slave states south 
 of the Ohio River and freedom. Along the river 
 were twenty-two or twenty-three stations, and 
 every port on Lake Erie was a point of depar- 
 ture. The five principal outlets were Toledo, San- 
 dusky, Cleveland, Ashtabula, and Fairport, and 
 through these stations there was an ever increas- 
 ing procession of fugitives. Within this one 
 state it has been calculated that there were nearly 
 three thousand miles of "underground road." 
 Western Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Illinois had 
 their roads, converging at Erie, Detroit, To- 
 ledo, Michigan City, and Chicago. Such was the 
 anti-slavery sentiment on which Lincoln could rely. 
 A hasty sketch of the lives of Lincoln and 
 Douglas before their speeches in Chicago in 
 1858 will show the typical western conditions 
 which had put them in their leading positions. 
 Douglas was forty-five years old, Lincoln four 
 years older. Born in Brandon, Vermont, Stephen 
 Arnold Douglas was the son of a young physician, 
 whose father was Benajah Douglass,^ a New York 
 pioneer who had moved to Vermont and there 
 been prominent in local poHtics, and whose 
 
 ^ The elder Douglass spelled his name with a double s. 
 
Lincoln and Douglas in Chicago 303 
 
 mother was Martha Arnold, a descendant of 
 Governor William Arnold of Rhode Island. 
 Dr. Douglass had married Sally Fisk, the 
 daughter of a prosperous farmer. He died when 
 Stephen was very young, and the widow and 
 children went to live with their mother's bachelor 
 brother on the Fisk farm. Here Stephen lived 
 the life of a healthy Vermont boy until the 
 marriage of his uncle and the birth of a son 
 changed his standing in the family. When the 
 boy began to propose going to Brandon Academy 
 to prepare for college, his uncle told him kindly 
 that he could not provide for his further educa- 
 tion. Stephen in a fit of boyish anger left the 
 farm and apprenticed himself to a cabinet-maker 
 in Middlebury. He stayed with him for a year, 
 delighting in the novelty of the life and in the 
 companionship with a group of young men with 
 whom he could discuss politics and eulogize his 
 favorite hero, Andrew Jackson ; but, nevertheless, 
 he grew weary of the humble position of appren- 
 tice. After two years with this man and with 
 another cabinet-maker, he gave up the trade and 
 returned to the home of his mother, enrolling 
 himself at Brandon Academy. 
 
 The marriage of his sister and later of his 
 
304 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 mother started the boy at the age of seventeen 
 on his westward journeying. It put him into 
 Canandaigua, New York, where he pursued his 
 studies at its excellent academy for three years, 
 and prepared for his later career by studying law 
 out of school in the offices of local attorneys. 
 The western fever was upon him, and life on one 
 of the great channels of westward migration in- 
 duced him in the spring of 1833, against the 
 wishes of his relatives and friends, to start for 
 Buffalo and the tempting world beyond. 
 
 Douglas's first six months in the new country 
 were marked by hardship and by a serious illness. 
 Lack of funds drove him to teaching in a little 
 Illinois village in place of practising law as he had 
 hoped. Within a year, however, the penniless 
 boy had been admitted to the Illinois bar, by 
 what must have been a very simple examination, 
 and was happily established in a law office in the 
 court-house at Jacksonville, Illinois. From 
 this time on law was subordinated to his chosen 
 pursuit, politics, for which his ready comradeship, 
 his acute intelligence, and his keen ambition 
 fitted him admirably. He filled at astonishingly 
 early ages several minor positions, working his 
 way into the hearts of the people and into the 
 
Lincoln and Douglas in Chicago 305 
 
 councils of the Democratic party. He was secre- 
 tary of state for Illinois at the age of twenty-seven, 
 and in that year was also made a district judge. 
 At thirty he was sent as a member of Congress to 
 Washington. Reelected twice he was promoted 
 in 1847 ^^ ^^^ honor of senatorship, and became 
 immediately prominent as chairman of a leading 
 committee. During these years he married a 
 southern lady and removed to Chicago, with 
 whose commercial interests he allied himself 
 closely by investing in real estate, the promise 
 of which he was quick to see. 
 
 To Chicago and northern Illinois Douglas ren- 
 dered a great service by contending for the build- 
 ing of the Illinois Central Railroad through the 
 upper counties of the state to Chicago as a ter- 
 minal. In this measure, whose passage he se- 
 cured by making a combination plan with a 
 southern railroad so that the proposed bill con- 
 templated in the future a trunk line from the 
 Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico and thus 
 became a national instead of a local measure, 
 Senator Douglas showed himself more than a 
 state and party politician. There was states- 
 manlike genius in a plan thus to unite the 
 North and South industrially and socially at a 
 
3o6 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 time when the tendency was to separate interests 
 and separate policies. His speech in Congress 
 was one of the first to set forth the power of 
 the Great Lakes and the place of the Mississippi 
 Valley in the national well-being. 
 
 Reelected senator for several successive periods, 
 he became through the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, 
 which he himself drafted, the advocate of " popu- 
 lar sovereignty," a phrase which he coined to 
 take the place of the less dignified term " squatter 
 sovereignty," that had previously designated the 
 principle that each state had a right to decide 
 such questions as slavery for itself. He returned 
 to Chicago in 1854, to be met by a mob who de- 
 nounced his policy, and immediately threw him- 
 self into an active campaign in the hostile counties 
 of northern Illinois. When he came back to 
 secure his seat in the Senate for another term, 
 Douglas had been placed by the course of na- 
 tional events in an entirely new position. Bitterly 
 resenting the trickery which had made " popular 
 sovereignty " a mere name and had given the 
 state of Kansas at the Lecompton convention 
 into the hands of the pro-slavery men, Douglas 
 stood out on the floor of the Senate against his 
 party and declared his opposition to the Lecomp- 
 
Lincoln and Douglas in Chicago 307 
 
 ton constitution. Revolting against his own 
 party, he was nevertheless representing the senti- 
 ment of IlUnois and the Northwest, and he re- 
 turned to Chicago in 1858 to an unequalled 
 popularity. 
 
 It was four years since Douglas had been in 
 Chicago, — since the day when he had been met 
 by a storm of abuse and his address had been 
 heralded by the lowering of flags to half-mast and 
 the tolling of bells as for some public calamity. 
 Now an enthusiastic delegation met him at 
 Michigan City and escorted him by special train 
 to his home. As his train entered Chicago it was 
 greeted by the booming of cannon, and every sign 
 of public enthusiasm. Crowds filled the streets 
 and banners waved from the balconies and 
 windows. The whole city was brilliantly deco- 
 rated ; bands of music marched the streets ; and 
 in a carriage drawn by six horses and surrounded 
 by a military escort Senator Douglas, " The De- 
 fender of Popular Sovereignty," as the banners 
 proclaimed him, drove to the Tremont House, 
 receiving everywhere a welcome that proclaimed 
 him the idol of his fellow-citizens. 
 
 The Tremont House was the finest hotel in 
 the city. The first house of that name had been 
 
3o8 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 built in 1832. It had been burned, as had its 
 immediate successor, and the proprietor had 
 erected on the land a fine brick building five 
 stories and a half high, containing two hundred 
 rooms, whose extravagant cost of seventy thou- 
 sand dollars and whose magnificence the business 
 men of Chicago had been inclined to ridicule as 
 entirely beyond the possible needs of the city at 
 its erection, but which they were now beginning 
 to regard as an evidence of great foresight on the 
 part of its builder. From its balcony Douglas 
 delivered on the night of his arrival the first ad- 
 dress of the campaign for the senatorship in 
 which, by the nomination of the Republicans, 
 Abraham Lincoln was to be his opponent. 
 
 While Douglas had been carrying off the 
 honors of the Democratic party of Illinois, Lin- 
 coln had been rising more slowly to prominence 
 in the ranks of the Whig and later of the newly 
 organized Republican party. With the events of 
 his early life his subsequent career has made 
 every one familiar. He had been a practising 
 lawyer as well as politician, had been several 
 times to the state legislature, and in 1846 had 
 been sent to Congress. Opposing the Kansas- 
 Nebraska Act, he had done much to organize the 
 
Lincoln and Douglas in Chicago 309 
 
 new Republican party in Illinois, and was recog- 
 nized as its strongest man. He was now unani- 
 mously named as " the first and only choice of the 
 Republicans of Illinois for the United States 
 Senate." Yet, although known to the Republi- 
 cans of the Northwest as a lawyer of ability and 
 a political leader, he seemed no match for the 
 popular and well-known senator from Washing- 
 ton. 
 
 With Lincoln standing behind him within the 
 hotel, Douglas made on the evening of the 9th 
 of July a long address to the thousands of people 
 who surged in the street below the balcony. 
 This speech was a defence of his Lecompton 
 attitude, and a review of his differences with Lin- 
 coln's propositions, as expressed in his speech 
 accepting the nomination, the famous " house- 
 divided-against-itself " declaration. Douglas was 
 a short, broad-shouldered, thick-set man, with 
 great alertness and animation of manner. A 
 traveller from .the East who was staying at the 
 hotel recorded her impressions of the two 
 speakers. Of Douglas, she said that in manner 
 he combined force and unusual grace. His head 
 was noble, almost Websterian, his voice pleasant, 
 and altogether he was " a most effective popular 
 
3IO The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 speaker." The next night Lincoln spoke to a 
 large and enthusiastic audience from the same 
 balcony. Because he was not so well-known the 
 writer described him more fully. In person tall 
 and awkward, and in manner ungainly, his face 
 still had such good humor, generosity, and intel- 
 lect beaming from it that it made the eye love to 
 linger there until one almost fancied him good- 
 looking. As a political speaker she found him 
 ready, humorous, and argumentative, with a gift 
 at telling anecdotes with inconceivable quaintness 
 and effect. 
 
 The two candidates had met many times be- 
 fore, and had debated together as early as 1834. 
 Lincoln was not underrated by Douglas as a 
 weak opponent in the campaign. When Doug- 
 las heard of his nomination he had said, " I shall 
 have my hands full. He is the strong man of 
 his party — full of wit, facts, dates — and the 
 best stump speaker, with his droll ways and dry 
 jokes, in the West. He is as honest as he is 
 shrewd ; and if I beat him, my victory will be 
 hardly won." 
 
 Immediately after the Chicago speeches the 
 two candidates set out on the tour of Illinois 
 which soon became a three months' continuation 
 
Lincoln and Douglas in Chicago 311 
 
 of joint debates. As a result Douglas went back 
 to the Senate, but he went back a weakened man 
 to a divided party. Two years later, while he was 
 being nominated for the presidency by one wing 
 of his party, Lincoln was being nominated for the 
 same office by the Republicans at Chicago. 
 
 When it was decided to hold the National 
 Republican Convention in that city, the people 
 set about providing a building for the occasion. 
 At Pittsburg in 1856 a hall for two thousand was 
 large enough. At the corner of Lake and Mar- 
 ket streets the Republicans erected a huge oblong 
 wooden building which would hold ten thousand 
 men, and as the event proved it was not large 
 enough by a third, and twenty thousand more 
 clamored in the streets for admittance. This 
 structure was absolutely bare, its walls being 
 broken by two rows of windows, and its two 
 front corners surmounted by small square towers 
 with flagstaffs. Over the door was an arched 
 front bearing the words " Republican Wigwam." 
 It cost seven thousand dollars and its great vir- 
 tue was the excellence of its acoustic properties. 
 
 Thousands of men came to the city for the 
 convention and the excitement was tremendous. 
 During the first two days of the gathering the 
 
3 1 2 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 time was given up to framing the platform and 
 to other business, and it was not till the third day 
 that the four hundred and sixty-five delegates 
 proceeded to balloting. The New Yorkers were 
 jubilant in their assurance of the success of their 
 nominee, Mr. Seward, and had created the same 
 impression in many circles. As a last demon- 
 stration the Seward men held a great parade on 
 the morning of the third day, the i8th of 
 May ; but by this act they lost more than they 
 gained, for while they were marching about with 
 bands the Lincoln men filled up the Wigwam, 
 and when the Seward men arrived they had to take 
 back seats. 
 
 When the convention was called to order, there 
 was not an unoccupied space a foot square in 
 the building. The three broad doorways were 
 crowded, and outside tens of thousands of men 
 thronged the streets. The excitement was tre- 
 mendous, and thunders of applause burst forth 
 at the names of Seward ^nd Lincoln. When 
 the delegates settled down to voting, the result 
 of the first ballot was 173^^ for Seward and 102 
 for Lincoln, the rest of the votes going to the six 
 minor candidates. On the next ballot the states 
 abandoned their " favorite sons," turning to one 
 
Lincoln and Douglas in Chicago 313 
 
 or the other of the two leaders, with the result 
 that Seward had i84|- and Lincoln 181. Two 
 hundred and thirty-three votes were necessary for 
 a choice. As the' delegates were preparing for 
 the third ballot, the chairman of the Illinois Re- 
 publican Committee entered the hall with a large 
 crayon likeness of " Honest Old Abe," while 
 Judge Davis followed, carrying on his shoulders 
 a long, moss-covered old rail bearing the legend, 
 " Split by Lincoln." The dense crowd went 
 wild with enthusiasm. 
 
 On the third ballot Lincoln had 23 1|^, Seward 
 180. One vote and a half more were needed, and 
 there was a moment of breathless silence until 
 the chairman of the Ohio delegation rose and 
 announced the change of four votes from Chase 
 to Lincoln. For a moment the hall was still, 
 and then as every one drew a long breath of 
 relief the sound in the Wigwam was like the rush 
 of a mighty wind. Then the thunders of ap- 
 plause and the shouting broke loose. The man 
 on the roof who had been reporting the balloting 
 to the crowds without leaned over the skylight 
 to find out who had been the man named. One 
 of the tellers shouted above the din, " Fire the 
 salute ! Abe Lincoln is nominated ! " and outside 
 
314 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 the waiting thousands took up the cry. So loud 
 was the uproar that men in the Wigwam could 
 hardly hear the sound of the cannon discharged 
 on the roof of the building, or the answering 
 salute of one hundred guns fired from the roof 
 of the Tremont House. Votes were promptly 
 changed over until the number for Lincoln was 
 three hundred and fifty-four, and then the con- 
 vention adjourned. It had been one of the 
 memorable conventions of the nation, and had 
 been made up of a large number of leading men. 
 Sixty of the delegates were later sent by their 
 respective states to Congress, and many of the 
 members were made governors. A great man 
 had been called to lead the nation through a 
 great crisis. 
 
 One more memorable scene in the lives of 
 these two men took place at the Wigwam, which 
 had been rechristened National Hall. To Chi- 
 cago Douglas returned after war had been de- 
 clared. With rare nobility and greatness he had 
 supported President Lincoln and the administra- 
 tion in Washington, upholding Lincoln in every 
 way that the leader of a great party, who had 
 polled at the last election over a million votes, 
 could. No leader has ever shown less personal 
 
Lincoln and Douglas in Chicago 315 
 
 feeling and more true greatness than Mr. Douglas 
 in that crisis. He sank the partisan in the patriot 
 and turned all his energies towards the saving of 
 the Union. With Lincoln's approval and grati- 
 tude he left Washington to arouse the sentiment 
 of loyalty and Unionism in the critical North- 
 west, and made in April, 1861, a series of ad- 
 dresses along his homeward route, closing with 
 a great plea in the Capitol at Springfield. One 
 who had never admired him, listening now to 
 this speech for the support of the government 
 and the defence of the Union, said that he did 
 not think it was possible for a human being to 
 produce a more prodigious effect with spoken 
 words. Southern as well as northern Illinois 
 was ready after this for the conflict. 
 
 As he entered Chicago Douglas was met with 
 a remarkable demonstration. He had come home 
 many times, sometimes for honor and some- 
 times for abuse, but never to meet the united 
 regard and support of men of all parties and all 
 beliefs. In the Wigwam he made a final ad- 
 dress, setting forth to his hearers the situation, 
 and announcing that the critical time was come. 
 " The conspiracy is now known. . . . There 
 are only two sides to the question. Every man 
 
3i6 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 must be for the United States or against it." 
 For the first time he drew the sharp distinction 
 setting the two sides in striking contrast, and 
 calling the people of Illinois to loyalty. The 
 gentle side of his personality made him foresee 
 with dread the horrors of war, and he besought 
 the people to remember that they were a Chris- 
 tian nation and as such they must prosecute the 
 war, saving as far as possible the innocent, the 
 women and children, from suffering. 
 
 The Chicago speech was published all over 
 the country, and Douglas supporters recognized 
 that their leader had become the first of the 
 great company of " War Democrats," of which 
 General Logan and other distinguished men 
 were to be loyal members. In a few days he 
 was taken ill and died at the Tremont House. 
 His last words were a message to his sons to 
 " obey the laws and support the Constitution 
 of the United States." Chicago, Illinois, and 
 the nation mourned him as a true patriot. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 THE GREAT LAKES IN THE CIVIL WAR 
 
 AS the northern frontier of the United 
 States the Great Lakes, although at some 
 distance from the decisive battles of the 
 Civil War, were the scene of strong Confederate 
 activity, especially in the last year of the struggle. 
 In April, 1864, Jefferson Davis sent three men 
 to Canada as " Special Commissioners of the 
 Confederate Government." They established 
 quarters at Montreal and Toronto, and prepared 
 themselves according to their written and verbal 
 instructions to use in any way possible the feeling 
 of hostility to the administration, which existed 
 in the Northwestern states, and to organize this 
 sentiment into definite opposition to the further 
 prosecution of the war. That was where they 
 began. The most daring Confederate leaders in 
 Canada and the South had dreams of a North- 
 western Confederacy which should come into 
 being after a general uprising and should be 
 
 317 
 
3i8 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 matched by the Southern Confederacy and an 
 Eastern Union. There were at this time prob- 
 ably one hundred escaped Confederate prisoners 
 in Canada, as well as many Southern men and 
 Confederate sympathizers who had come there 
 when, for some reason, they were better able to 
 serve their cause at this distance. 
 
 Talk with Northern men who visited Canada 
 disclosed to the commissioners the fact that there 
 was in all the lake states a large body of dis- 
 affected men who did not support the adminis- 
 tration. These were divided into two classes : 
 first, the members of secret societies of a political 
 and semi-military nature, of which the " Sons of 
 Liberty " was the leading organization ; and 
 secondly, a large number who were actuated 
 mainly by a general weariness and dissatisfaction 
 with the war. Especially in Ohio, Indiana, and 
 Illinois the " Sons of Liberty " had great strength. 
 It is difficult to find out the exact figures. In 
 the three states it is thought they may have had 
 one hundred and seventy -five thousand members. 
 Chicago had a strong chapter of two thousand 
 men, which was constantly adding to its numbers. 
 The latter class, of those who were generally dis- 
 aflFected with the situation, was strengthened by 
 
The Great Lakes in the Civil War 319 
 
 Mr. Lincoln's call in July of 1 864 for five hundred 
 thousand more men for .the army. Indeed, it was 
 along this line that the secret societies did most 
 harm. When the time for definite action came, 
 these men were not ready to strike a blow against 
 the Union ; but the sentiment of the bodies was 
 against volunteering, and by reducing the num- 
 bers of ready volunteers they made drafting, with 
 its attendant discontent, necessary in these last 
 years, after these same states had sent out so 
 many regiments of their best sons to serve gal- 
 lantly on the field. 
 
 The first project of the Confederates on the 
 Canadian frontier was to liberate all Confederate 
 prisoners in the North, and in this purpose their 
 hopes centred in Chicago, for here there was a 
 great prison with thousands of men in confine- 
 ment. Camp Douglas had been laid out in the 
 summer of 186 1 as a camp for military instruc- 
 tion. It was located on land belonging to the 
 Douglas estate, just north of the grounds of the 
 first Chicago University. In this region, where 
 stands to-day the Douglas monument, no streets 
 were then laid out, but the whole was open 
 prairie, save for the little University building 
 erected four years before, and one solitary resi- 
 
320 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 dence. The camp was first used as a military 
 station, but in February, 1862, after the battle of 
 Fort Donelson, it was hastily prepared for the 
 reception of prisoners and eight or nine thou- 
 sand Confederates were placed there. Temporary 
 quarters were erected to hold them, but the 
 barracks became so crowded that the United 
 States regiments were obliged to encamp in tents 
 on the prairie. During this year Camp Douglas 
 served as military prison for seventeen thousand 
 Confederate prisoners and furnished barracks as 
 well for eight thousand paroled Confederate 
 troops. In 1863 it was much improved by a 
 thorough rebuilding which followed a season of 
 inclement weather, when the unsanitary and 
 crowded conditions made the men, already weak- 
 ened by exposure and army life, a prey to all 
 kinds of disease. It was in the fall of this year 
 that many dramatic escapes were made, the pris- 
 oners taking up the floor of their barracks and 
 digging gradually at night and during the absences 
 of the guards a long tunnel large enough for one 
 man to crawl through to the open land beyond 
 the camp fence. On a dark night eight or ten 
 men would make their way out, watching from 
 the outer end of the tunnel to escape between the 
 
The Great Lakes in the Civil War 321 
 
 rounds of the sentinel. During November some 
 seventy prisoners made their escape through a 
 tunnel over fifty feet long, of whom fifty were 
 afterwards recaptured. The next year the pris- 
 oners' barracks were raised four feet above the 
 ground to prevent such escapes. 
 
 It was no wonder that the thoughts of the 
 Canadian Commissioners turned to this prison. 
 During the year 1864, seventy-five hundred men 
 came to join the five thousand already there, and 
 in spite of the large death-rate that summer from 
 smallpox and other contagious diseases, this was a 
 body of men who, if liberated, could do great 
 things in the Northwest. 
 
 All summer the leaders of the movement tried 
 to get their Northern sympathizers to move, but 
 the " Sons of Liberty " set as the first possible 
 time for action the 29th of August, the date of 
 the meeting of the National Democratic Conven- 
 tion in Chicago. At this time, and under the 
 guise of politics, large numbers of men could be 
 introduced into the city without suspicion and 
 it was hoped that the sentiment of the convention 
 would be one of strong disaffection to further 
 prosecution of the war. Captain Hines, one of 
 the leading agents of the Confederacy, and sixty 
 
322 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 picked men were ready to head the movement ; 
 arms had been brought into the city, and the 
 prisoners had been notified to be ready ; but the 
 rank and file of the prospective army did not 
 materialize. The government had got wind of 
 the project and had sent extra troops to the city. 
 These amounted to only a thousand men, but the 
 convention was not so rabid in its opposition as 
 had been hoped, and when it came to the moment 
 the " Sons of Liberty " were not ready to strike 
 the decisive blow, and the leaders were soon con- 
 vinced that the time was not ripe. They could 
 not count on a sufficiently large number of North- 
 western men for their support, and without them 
 they could do nothing. 
 
 The next step in the programme of the disap- 
 pointed Commissioners was to capture the war 
 steamer Michigan, the only armed vessel on 
 the lakes, which was now at Sandusky, and to 
 release the Confederate prisoners on Johnson's 
 Island within that inlet. The Camp Douglas 
 scheme had been to march southward through 
 IlHnois to the support of the Southern army. 
 The present plan was to go by steamer from 
 Sandusky to Cleveland, capture that city, and 
 proceed through Ohio to Virginia. The plot 
 
The Great Lakes in the Civil War 323 
 
 was worked out to its last detail. Every signal 
 was arranged. There were conspirators in the 
 city and on the island, and even on the gun- 
 boat itself. But the plan was disclosed by a spy 
 to the lieutenant-colonel at Detroit, who tele- 
 graphed an instant warning to the commander of 
 the Michigan, and Cole, the leader in this part of 
 the plan, was taken. Mr. Beall, who was to bring 
 men from Canada, received no word of this mis- 
 adventure, but proceeded to execute his share of 
 the scheme. To disarm suspicion the first of his 
 party, a Mr. Burley, took passage on the steamer 
 Philo Parsons, a merchant vessel plying be- 
 tween Detroit and Sandusky. Mr. Beall and two 
 others embarked at Sandwich on the Canadian 
 side of the river, and sixteen men came on at 
 Amherstburg. This last party embarked in worn 
 and ragged garments, passing as tramps who had 
 gone to Canada to better their fortunes, but with- 
 out success. Their only baggage was one great 
 old-fashioned trunk tied with ropes. After the 
 steamer left Kelley's Island, outside Sandusky 
 Bay, Beall announced to the mate In a loud 
 voice that he hereby took possession of the boat 
 in the name of the Confederate States. As he 
 spoke his followers opened the trunk and pulled 
 
324 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 out a formidable array of revolvers and hatchets 
 which they brandished about. The crew and pas- 
 sengers had no choice but to surrender. As the 
 boat needed fuel Beall had it put about and headed 
 for Middle Bass Island, ten miles from the Ohio 
 shore and about the same distance from Johnson's 
 Island. Here the passengers were set on shore 
 and another steamer, the Island ^een, was 
 boarded as she came up to make her usual landing, 
 and taken possession of with much uproar and 
 some shooting. Her passengers were also landed 
 after a time of suspense on their part, and she was 
 towed out into the lake, scuttled, and set adrift 
 to sink where she might. 
 
 Beall again headed the Philo Parsons for 
 Sandusky Bay and the gunboat Michigan, but 
 when he reached the inlet there was no sign of 
 the signal lights and rockets which were to have 
 guided him. It was bright moonlight, and the 
 conspirators could see the lights on the gunboat, 
 and even the outlines of her dark hulk, but all 
 was quiet and peaceful. Then seventeen of 
 Beall's men declared that they would go no 
 farther. No one of the expected signals had 
 been shown ; Cole had evidently failed, and they 
 did not mean to rush blindly into battle with a 
 
The Great Lakes in the Civil War 325 
 
 gunboat already warned of their approach. The 
 steamer was brought to a stop and Beall and his 
 assistant, Burley, urged the men on, but in vain. 
 The seventeen men drew up and signed a formal 
 protest, in which they stated that they as a crew 
 would here express their admiration of John Beall, 
 both as captain and military leader, but being con- 
 vinced that the enemy was already apprised of 
 their approach and so well prepared that their 
 attack could not possibly succeed, and having al- 
 ready captured two boats, they declined to prose- 
 cute the enterprise further. Beall and his two 
 supporters had no alternative but to head about 
 for the Detroit River. He landed several pris- 
 oners on an island in the river, among them the 
 captain of the Island ^een, and then went 
 on to Sandwich on the Canadian shore. He and 
 his men removed everything of value from the 
 Philo Parsons, bored holes in her keel and 
 sides, and left her to sink, while they made their 
 escape into the interior. 
 
 This bold attempt caused great excitement on 
 the northern borders of the United States and in 
 Canada. The British government redoubled its 
 watchfulness, and the United States sent detec- 
 tives across the lakes to keep a close lookout on 
 
326 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 the Canadian ports. So successful was this care 
 that the next expedition planned by Beall within 
 a few weeks failed utterly. He was to start with 
 a vessel from Canada, capture the American 
 steamers in Buffalo harbor, take the city if pos- 
 sible, and then proceed to Cleveland and to the 
 prisoners at Johnson's Island. The Confederates 
 were so closely watched that they could not even 
 get arms or supplies on the boat. 
 
 September had seen these two attempts on the 
 lakes. The next step was the famous St. Al- 
 bans raid, when Confederates descended from Can- 
 ada into Vermont, and in a half hour tried to 
 fire the town, robbed the banks, shot at the citi- 
 zens, and were gone again, leaving consternation 
 in their wake. The whole frontier was aroused 
 by this time. The citizens of the lakes became 
 alarmed for their business and commerce, fearing 
 that such attempts would paralyze trade. The 
 convention of 18 17 with Great Britain had lim- 
 ited the naval force on the lakes of each of the 
 two nations to three armed vessels, neither fleet 
 to be increased without six months' notice to 
 the other power. On October 24, four days 
 after the St. Albans raid, the British were noti- 
 fied that the United States would now deem 
 
The Great Lakes in the Civil War 327 
 
 themselves at liberty to increase the armament 
 within six months if in their judgment the condi- 
 tion of affairs should require it. Congress in De- 
 cember authorized the construction of six revenue 
 cutters on the lakes, but the war was fortunately- 
 drawing to a close and no further action was taken. 
 The Canadian officials made up their minds 
 that there should be no more open raids to cast 
 reproach on the neutrality of their government, 
 but the Confederates were becoming more des- 
 perate as the end of the struggle drew near. 
 They had not given up their hopes in Chicago, 
 but now set the night of election day, Novem- 
 ber 8, for an attempt on Camp Douglas. The plan 
 of the leaders, as they afterwards confessed, 
 was to attack Camp Douglas, releasing the pris- 
 oners, to seize the polls, and stuff the boxes until 
 the city, county, and state were for McLellan, 
 the Democratic candidate, and finally to " utterly 
 sack the city, burning and destroying every de- 
 scription of property, except what they could 
 appropriate for their own use and that of their 
 Southern brethren — to lay the city waste and 
 carry off its money and stores to Jefferson 
 Davis's dominions." Colonel Sweet, command- 
 ing at Chicago, was warned of this plan by 
 
328 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 United States detectives so early that he was able 
 to break up the conspiracy without open blood- 
 shed. When, on November 6, the city began to 
 fill up with suspicious characters, especially the 
 leaders of the August gathering, and it became 
 evident that the Confederate sympathizers would 
 soon outnumber the small garrison at Camp 
 Douglas, Colonel Sweet caused the arrest of 
 Colonel St. Leger Grenfell and fourteen other 
 Confederate officers, and also the heads of the 
 "Sons of Liberty." This completely broke up 
 the conspiracy. 
 
 Two more attempts were made by the Confed- 
 erates from Canada, one to burn New York City, 
 and the other to wreck trains on the lake roads. 
 The Confederate Commissioner, Thompson, re- 
 ceived word in December that seven Southern 
 generals were to be moved from Johnson's Island 
 to Fort Lafayette, New York. He detailed 
 Beall and ten others to take the train and release 
 them. They were to stop the train at a lonely 
 place between Sandusky and Buffalo by put- 
 ting rails across the track, and to secure the engi- 
 neer and conductor. While Beall and a few men 
 went to secure the money in the express safe of 
 the train, others were to arm the generals and 
 
The Great Lakes in the Civil War 329 
 
 intimidate the passengers. The coaches were to 
 be detached, the engine derailed, and then the 
 Confederates were to take such money as they 
 would need, get into sleighs, and scatter over 
 Ohio and Pennsylvania, while the leaders drove 
 to Buffalo and caught the train to Canada. The 
 detectives discovered their plans, and Beall and 
 his companion were arrested while they were asleep 
 in an eating-room near the place of the proposed 
 attack. When the others failed to find their 
 leader, they hastened to escape to Canada. 
 
 Beall was tried for this and other similar deeds, 
 and for his capture of the Philo Parsons and the 
 Island ^een, and sentenced to be hanged for his 
 conduct as a spy and for carrying on irregular 
 and guerilla warfare against the United States. 
 The Camp Douglas leaders were also tried by 
 military courts. St. Leger Grenfell was sentenced 
 to death, but this was commuted to imprisonment 
 for life in Florida, from which he escaped three 
 years later. The other leaders received sentences 
 of imprisonment for terms of two, three, and five 
 years. Camp Douglas had in 1865 nearly twelve 
 thousand men in its barracks, but at the close of 
 the war these were gradually sent to their homes, 
 the property was sold, and the buildings torn down. 
 
CHAPTER XXV 
 
 THREE GREAT INDUSTRIES OF THE LAKES 
 
 NO part of the story of the Great Lakes is 
 more significant than the tale of the 
 building up of the large enterprises 
 that have made that region one of the leading 
 centres of production and consumption in the 
 United States and the world. The heroes of 
 exploration and of adventure were the forerun- 
 ners of commerce, and the founders of cities 
 were the leaders of industry. Two of the three 
 great industries of the early days have persisted 
 to the present time ; all three of them have 
 contributed largely to exploration and occu- 
 pation and deserve to be treated somewhat in 
 detail. 
 
 Washington Irving has well said that two lead- 
 ing objects of commercial gain have given birth to 
 wide and daring enterprise in the early history 
 of America. The precious metals led the Span- 
 
 33° 
 
Three Great Industries of the Lakes 331 
 
 iard to Mexico and Peru, while, as he puts it, 
 the " adroit and buoyant Frenchman " and the 
 " cool and calculating Briton " pursued the " less 
 splendid, but no less lucrative traffic in the 
 rich peltries of the north." The pioneer fur 
 traders were followed only after many, many 
 years, by what Irving has characterized as "the 
 slow and pausing steps of agriculture." 
 
 Apart from the land which agriculture might 
 in times of settled peace make profitable, the 
 white man found three great natural sources of 
 wealth. These were animals bearing fur of great 
 value, enormous deposits of copper and iron, 
 and primeval forests filled with trees suited to 
 the uses of civilized man. Profits from these 
 financed many an enterprise, from the earliest 
 voyages and the building of the Griffon to the 
 days of the railroad and the " Soo " Canal. For 
 two centuries, from 1634 to 1834, the fur trade 
 was the leading interest and source of profit of 
 the Great Lakes. 
 
 During Champlain's governorship the French, 
 through Nicolet, first opened an active system 
 of trade and barter with the Indians of the lakes, 
 and the history of French control thereafter is 
 the history of the fur trade. It paid the bills 
 
22'^ The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 of many of the voyages we have chronicled. In 
 1660 Radisson and Groselllers returned to Que- 
 bec from their Lake Superior voyage with sixty 
 canoes loaded with furs valued at two hundred 
 thousand pounds, in return for which they had 
 distributed among the Indians kettles, graters, 
 awls, needles, tin looking-glasses, ivory combs, 
 and knives. Even the official expedition of 
 Saint Lusson to take possession of the North- 
 west for France was to be paid for by gifts to 
 the Indians and return offerings of fur. 
 
 The fur trade of the Great Lakes supported 
 not only those who took up their dwelling on 
 these shores, but the struggling settlements of 
 Canada as well. It kept up home interest in 
 the support of these colonies by the rich profit 
 that it brought across the seas. In 1703 La 
 Hontan wrote that Canada subsisted only on 
 the trade of skins and furs. The profits and 
 the fascination of this pursuit robbed Canada 
 of its young men while it supplied it with money. 
 An official reported, in 1680, that eight hundred 
 men out of a population of ten thousand had 
 vanished from sight into the wilderness, and 
 that there was not a family of any condition or 
 quality that had not children, brothers, uncles, or 
 
Three Great Industries of the Lakes 233 
 
 nephews among the traders. There came to be 
 in the woods a distinct class of men known as 
 coureurs de bois, or rangers of the forest, who had 
 escaped from the restraints of civilized life and 
 reported themselves only once or twice a year at 
 the trading posts. 
 
 The government tried to stem the rush 
 of young men into the wilderness by requiring 
 licenses for trading with the Indians and limit- 
 ing the number to seventy-five a year ; but the 
 country was too large and remote and the gov- 
 ernment too feeble to carry out any such policy. 
 In the end the rulers turned their attention 
 instead to providing fortified trading posts for 
 these wanderers, first to aflford defence against 
 the Indians, and more especially to concentrate 
 and monopolize the trade, protecting it from the 
 rival Englishmen. These forts also made a claim 
 of possession in the regions which they com- 
 manded. Thus Mackinac, Detroit, Niagara, 
 Green Bay, Oswego, and a dozen minor posts 
 sprang up. 
 
 Travellers of the eighteenth century were likely 
 to meet on any one of the lakes fleets of fifty or 
 sixty canoes, heavily laden with beaver, otter, 
 mink, and marten skins, and paddled by Indians 
 
334 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 in their paint and feathers, or by hardly less 
 picturesque coureurs de bois in their blanket coats, 
 leathern moccasins and leggings, and scarlet sash 
 and cap. These men were no mere traders whose 
 knowledge was limited to prices and profits. 
 They were experts not only in the science of the 
 woods but also in the arts of diplomacy. The 
 success of the trade depended on the mainten- 
 ance of peace between the various Indian tribes 
 and groups of tribes ; and the life of the individ- 
 ual trader, as well as his earnings, depended on 
 his own adaptability. There came in time to be 
 leaders to whom the most difficult negotiations 
 with the Indians were left. Daniel de Greyselon 
 Du Luth, a prince among coureurs de bois, was 
 the chief hero of the early French period in the 
 upper country. In the summer of 1679 ^e 
 made a tour of Minnesota, planting with all 
 ceremony the arms of France in the leading 
 Indian villages, many of which he was the first 
 Frenchman to visit. At the end of the summer 
 he held on the shores of Lake Superior, near 
 the site of the present city of Duluth, a great 
 Indian council of chiefs from all these villages, 
 and negotiated a treaty of peace. The city that 
 bears his name may well be proud of the fact 
 
Three Great Industries of the Lakes 335 
 
 that after ten years among the Indians he entered 
 a written protest, still preserved in the archives 
 of Canada, with his disapproval of the sale of 
 whiskey and brandy to the natives. These lead- 
 ers were very important to the success of the ad- 
 ministration in Canada and were relied on and 
 treated with all respect. Their names were even 
 sent across the ocean, as we see in the laconic but 
 warm commendation of Du Luth sent by the 
 Governor of Canada in his colonial report of 
 17 10: "Captain Du Luth died this winter; he 
 was a very honest man." 
 
 After the fall of New France, a time of chaos 
 followed in the wilderness. With the restraint 
 of the strictly enforced code of French rule 
 removed, with a host of French traders in the 
 woods who did not yield to British control, and 
 with an opportunity for rivalry and ill-feeling 
 between every two traders, Indians as well as 
 white men became demoralized and the profits 
 decreased greatly. Then twenty-three merchants 
 of Montreal formed the Northwest Fur Company 
 (1783) and took into their employ two thousand 
 French and other fur traders. They traded with 
 the Indians of the Northwest, with Mackinac as 
 a centre. A rival company soon started compe- 
 
336 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 tition in the southern region of Wisconsin, Illi- 
 nois, and the Mississippi Valley. A careful 
 statement concerning the British trade was sent to 
 the authorities in Canada in 1790, when the pos- 
 sible future evacuation of the southern shores 
 of the lakes was beginning to be considered. 
 By this estimate the average produce of furs and 
 skins amounted for ten years to two hundred 
 thousand pounds a year. How this was dis- 
 tributed among the various lake posts is shown 
 in the following table : — 
 
 Statement concerning Trade at Detroit and Other Posts 
 
 Pounds 
 The whole Country & Posts below Montreal 30,000 
 
 The Grand River, the North Side of the Lakes 
 
 Ontario, Huron, & Superior 30,000 
 
 In the Country generally called the North 
 
 West 40,000 
 
 In the Countries to the Southward of the 
 
 Lakes, the Trade of which is principally 
 
 brought to the posts of Detroit and Mich- 
 
 illimackinac, there being very little Indian 
 
 Trade at Niagara 100,000 
 
 As above ^200,000 
 
 Dividing this general estimate into smaller dis- 
 tricts, the estimate was as follows : — 
 
Three Great Industries of the Lakes 
 
 In the District of the Garrison of Detroit Packs 
 The Fort of Detroit, Sagana & the South 
 
 Side of Lake Huron i ooo 
 
 Miamis & Wabash Country 2000 
 
 Sanduslcy 400 
 
 337 
 
 
 Say 
 
 3400 packs of 
 
 Furrs estimated at 12^^ each is 
 
 
 _;^40,8oo 
 
 In the District of Michillimackinac : 
 
 
 
 On Lake Michigan 
 
 
 Packs 
 
 The Grand River 
 
 
 100 
 
 St. Josephs 
 
 
 300 
 
 Checago 
 
 
 100 
 
 Milwaki 
 
 
 120 
 
 La Bay or Green Bay, including the 
 
 upper 
 
 
 ports of the Mississippi, the South Side 
 
 
 of Lake Superior 
 
 
 300 
 
 The Illinois Country 
 
 
 600 
 
 Furrs estimated at £,10 each 
 
 Say 3220 packs of 
 
 ^60,400 
 
 Total of the two Districts 
 
 ^101,200 
 
 This estimate was sent to the colonial office to 
 show that if the lake posts were ceded to America, 
 at least half if not seven-tenths of the Indian 
 trade would be lost. 
 
 The Americans were not ignorant of this great 
 opportunity for trade. When the lake posts 
 
23^ The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 were evacuated by the British in 1796, they 
 began to take a hand in the competition. The 
 United States government sent out agents, and 
 John Jacob Astor found a field for his business 
 enterprise. In 1809 he organized the American 
 Fur Company, and two years later he bought out 
 the Mackinaw Company and the Northwest 
 Company south of the boundary line. His 
 plan to unite the Pacific and the Great Lakes 
 failed for the time being, and the War of 1812 
 interfered with his schemes ; but his organization 
 of the lake trade did its work in turning the 
 stream of profits southward of the border and 
 Americanizing Lake Superior. 
 
 The settlements built up by the fur trade were 
 unique and amazing when we consider their isola- 
 tion in the midst of the wilderness. With Mack- 
 inac under French rule we are somewhat familiar, 
 having visited it with La Salle and Saint Lusson. 
 At Fort William, at the western end of Lake Su- 
 perior, the British merchants built an establishment 
 that reminds one of the feudal castles of the Old 
 World. In 1805 the Canadian companies awoke 
 to the fact that the old Grand Portage, the former 
 gateway of the North, was on territory claimed 
 by the American government. They promptly 
 
Three Great Industries of the Lakes 339 
 
 demolished their old fort there, and built Fort 
 William, forty-five miles north of the portage. 
 There they established a village surrounded by a 
 high palisade, within which stood a big central 
 building, a counting-house, a doctor's residence, 
 stores for merchandise and depots for furs, work- 
 shops for mechanics, — carpenters, coopers, 
 blacksmiths, tinsmiths, and canoe builders, — 
 boarding-houses for traders, a powder-house and 
 guard-house, and not the least necessary of the 
 many buildings, a jail. Outside the palisade was a 
 long wharf, a ship-building yard, a cemetery, and a 
 considerable line of log houses and Indian wigwams. 
 The great feature of the settlement, however, 
 was the central building. This wooden edifice 
 stood in the middle of a spacious square and had 
 a long balcony, five feet from the ground. In 
 the centre, flanked by rows of apartments, was a 
 great dining hall, sixty feet long by thirty wide, 
 where two hundred agents, partners, clerks, inter- 
 preters, guides, and visitors could dine. Across 
 the upper end of the hall was stretched a very 
 large map of the Indian country, with all the 
 Northwest Company's posts and routes from the 
 Great Lakes to Hudson Bay and the Pacific, — 
 probably the only accurate map of that region 
 
34° The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 on the continent, save for its smaller copies in 
 the factories themselves. Along the sides of the 
 room were portraits of various proprietors of the 
 company, a bust of Simon McTavish, a pioneer 
 member of the company and long its head, a 
 full-length portrait of Nelson, and a painting of 
 the battle of the Nile. 
 
 To this post came every spring from Montreal 
 two of the directors of the company, with a 
 retinue of cooks, bakers, clerks, and attendants, 
 and in the great hall from the last of May to the 
 end of August there was always high carnival of 
 feasting and merriment. In this room, too, were 
 held the parliaments of the fur trade, when with 
 all solemnity the Scottish chiefs regulated the 
 affairs of the company and shrewdly made their 
 bargains and estimated their earnings. About 
 them gathered a host of traders, coming every 
 day out of the bleak wilderness to enjoy the good 
 cheer of this metropolis of the Northwest and 
 spend their hard-earned gains in the short sum- 
 mer holiday ; and with these came a legion of 
 half-breeds, Indians, and hangers-on. It was 
 a picturesque and motley throng. Ross Cox, 
 visiting there in 1817, found natives of every 
 part of the British Isles, of France, Germany,, 
 
Three Great Industries of the Lakes 341 
 
 Italy, Denmark, Sweden, Holland, and Switzer- 
 land, and, in the capacity of servants, of Africa, 
 the Sandwich Islands, and Bengal. " In their fea- 
 tures," he says, " all shades of the human species, — 
 in their dress, all the varied hues of the rainbow." 
 If the paddle and moccasin of the fur trader 
 had been the pathfinder for the lake region, the 
 axe of the lumberman and the pick of the miner 
 who followed them opened up and cleared the 
 wilderness. The fur trader had discovered and 
 explored the wilderness. He was driven out by 
 the lumberman and miner, who spoiled his field 
 with such speed that in a decade or two fur 
 trading as a leading industry was banished to 
 more distant regions. The newcomers made a 
 place for their successors, the pioneer farmers and 
 settlers, by clearing and preparing the country. 
 Extensive lumbering and mining operations 
 came only with the Americans. For two hun- 
 dred years the French and English tried to keep 
 the western part of the lake region a wilderness 
 and preserve for hunting. The French did it by 
 instinct, for they preferred the wild, free life it 
 offered them ; the English did it by policy. In 
 the Parliament of Great Britain leading legislators 
 argued for the restriction of immigration, so that 
 
342 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 the hunting-grounds should not be disturbed. 
 By a royal proclamation of 1763 the valley of the 
 Ohio and the country about the Great Lakes was 
 declared closed to settlement or purchase of land 
 without special leave or license. A forest pre- 
 serve was created, and the northwest country was 
 designated by the English " the habitation of 
 bears and beavers." Only with the coming of 
 the Americans was the lake region developed, 
 and the first signs of the approaching civilization 
 were the cutting down of forests and the mining 
 of copper and iron deposits. 
 
 Two great divisions are recognized in the forest 
 distribution of the United States, — the Atlantic 
 and the Pacific. These are separated by the 
 great interior plains and prairies of the conti- 
 nent. The line of cleavage between timber land 
 and prairie is nowhere so defined that it does not 
 have inlets of prairie land in the forest region, 
 and stretches of wooded land in the plain, but 
 the Mississippi River is in general the western 
 boundary of the Atlantic forest area, and the 
 states of the Great Lakes are all included in 
 this section. Within this eastern forest there 
 are several belts of different kinds of woods. 
 Two of these are in the lake states. The north- 
 
Three Great Industries of the Lakes 343 
 
 ern belt, largely of white pine mixed with red or 
 Norway pine, stretches from New England across 
 New York State and northern Pennsylvania to 
 Wisconsin and the eastern part of Minnesota, 
 and is broken only by Lake Erie. This tract 
 has been the chief source of supply for the 
 United States. South of this white pine belt 
 runs a central hardwood section, where are par- 
 ticularly valuable forests of hickory, maple, oak, 
 and walnut. This section extends from Niagara 
 eastward into New York, and westward across 
 the northern parts of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. 
 As it was in the natural line of migration both 
 from the rivers of the south and the lakes of the 
 north, this central belt was cut long before the 
 pine sections were touched. It fell out in this 
 way, therefore, that for three-quarters of a cen- 
 tury these states have been in the main agricul- 
 tural, rather than forest lands. 
 
 Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota have 
 had a long history of lumber prosperity. The 
 first railroads of Michigan were welcomed by the 
 settlers as a means of transporting lumber from 
 the logging-camps and sawmills that were spring- 
 ing up all through the central part of the state. 
 The northern industry was taken care of by the 
 
344 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 lake vessels, which took the lumber from the ports 
 on the shore through the straits of Mackinac. 
 Lake Superior, which had long been a centre for 
 the shifting fur trade, was settled permanently for 
 the first time by the men who were brought by 
 lumber interests. The Mackinac region, the 
 Saginaw and St. Croix rivers, and many smaller 
 streams became the scenes during the winter 
 months of a busy and picturesque activity, and 
 have been associated ever since in fact and fiction 
 with the romance as well as the profit of the lum- 
 ber industry. As Rochester in the East had be- 
 gun with a sawmill, so Duluth and Superior in 
 the West came into being as supply stations for 
 the rivermen, and their prosperity depended in 
 1870 so largely on the lumber traffic that the 
 contest over the railroads, which each place wanted 
 on its side of the state line, was determined by 
 the interests and preferences of the lumber kings. 
 No accurate record of the entire amount of 
 lumber produced was made in the first decades 
 of the industry, but in 1890 Michigan, Wiscon- 
 sin, and Minnesota were cutting more than one- 
 third of all the lumber supply of the United 
 States, and to this Michigan contributed one- 
 half the amount credited to the three states, and 
 
Three Great Industries of the Lakes 345 
 
 one-fifth of the whole product of the country. 
 Four-fifths of Michigan was then reported to be 
 forested, — a record leading that of any other state. 
 
 As early as 1850 the Michigan lumber busi- 
 ness was so large as to attract attention through- 
 out commercial centres of the country, and it 
 grew with the amazing rapidity of all western 
 development. In 1854 there were in the state 
 sixty-one sawmills with an output of 108 million 
 feet; in 1872 there were fifteen hundred saw- 
 mills, to say nothing of all the other activities 
 incident on lumbering, such as making shingles 
 and planing. By 1881 the amount had jumped 
 to nearly forty million feet, and it was calculated 
 that the output of Michigan mills that year would 
 have loaded a train of cars nearly twenty-five hun- 
 dred miles long. 
 
 These figures have come from the western 
 states, but here as everywhere else the cities and 
 states of the lakes show their interdependence. 
 Buffalo, at the eastern extremity of Lake Erie, 
 becomes one of the leading lumber markets of the 
 world by reason of the immense shipments that 
 come to it from the upper lakes. In 1907 Buffalo 
 had one hundred and thirty-two lumber firms, and 
 an annual output from her yards of over two 
 
346 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 hundred million feet of pine and over one hun- 
 dred and fifty million feet of hardwood. This 
 product was made up of the best species of pines, 
 sought for by all dealers, and the hardwood em- 
 braced every known variety of American trees. 
 
 It is beginning to be evident that this pace 
 cannot be kept up without exhausting the forests. 
 In 1903 the cut from the three northern states 
 was not fifty million feet, a smaller cut than any 
 year since 1878 and hardly more than half that 
 of 1890. To the danger involved in reckless 
 cutting without reforesting our people and legis- 
 lators have become aroused, and these states are 
 matching their past leadership in output by a 
 corresponding activity in protecting their forest 
 areas. Minnesota led in having an effective 
 system of fire-wardens, and each state is creating 
 forestry commissions and buying up preserves. 
 In thus rescuing from destruction our forests no 
 one can be too prompt or too energetic. Less 
 than a hundred years of occupation of the lake 
 region must not wipe out this industry or destroy 
 the natural beauty and resources of the country. 
 The fur trade had to go before the advance of 
 civilization ; the lumber industry must not be 
 allowed to follow in its wake. 
 
Three Great Industries of the Lakes 347 
 
 The fur trade was at its height in 1820 and 
 was seriously on the wane by 1835 ' ^^^ lumber 
 industry was of a size to be reckoned with by 
 1 830 ; in the next decade, between 1 840 and 1 850, 
 the mineral industry came into existence. The 
 earliest explorers had known of the presence in 
 the Lake Superior region of large deposits of 
 virgin copper. References are made to these de- 
 posits in the Jesuit " Relations." The first at- 
 tempt at mining was made in 1770 by Alexander 
 Henry, the trader at Mackinac, after the Indian 
 wars were over, but he was not successful. 
 
 With the coming of the Americans, copper 
 mining began in earnest. Indeed, it was said by 
 a friend, who told the story twenty years after the 
 conversation, that Benjamin Franklin told him 
 that when he was drawing the treaty of peace in 
 Paris he had access to the journals and charts of a 
 corps of French engineers who had been explor- 
 ing Lake Superior, and that he drew the line 
 through Lake Superior to include the best and 
 largest supply of copper in the American posses- 
 sions. " The time will come," said Franklin, 
 " when drawing that line will be considered the 
 greatest service I ever rendered my country." 
 
 Copper and silver were the minerals whose 
 
348 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 discovery created the most enthusiasm, and 
 several companies were formed for their mining 
 In the thirties and forties after the expedition of 
 Governor Cass. Of these at the time of the 
 Civil War only two were paying dividends. In 
 1865 the Calumet and Hecia mines were started 
 and began to develop that part of the rich upper 
 peninsula of Michigan known as Keweenaw Point. 
 From that time the mines have sent out yearly 
 thousands of tons, and millions of dollars are 
 reahzed every year from them. Until 1 880, when 
 copper was found In Montana and Arizona, 
 Michigan was the only source of supply In the 
 United States, and sent out five-sixths of the 
 nation's whole product. Since that time her out- 
 put has trebled, but owing to the great increase of 
 mining in the West this tremendous tonnage of 
 copper is to-day only one-fourth of the total, al- 
 though still a most important factor in the con- 
 tribution of the lake region to the wealth of the 
 country. 
 
 The presence of Iron ore In the Lake Superior 
 country was hardly suspected until after 1840. 
 All companies were formed to mine copper, silver, 
 or gold. The state geologist made no mention 
 of iron In his first report in 1840, but In Septem- 
 
o 
 
 p 
 
 r/2 
 
 < 
 
 h4 
 
 < 
 
Three Great Industries of the Lakes 349 
 
 ber, 1844, ^ party of government surveyors run- 
 ning the lines of a township twelve miles west of 
 Marquette, noticed the deflection of their compass 
 needle. The party was under the leadership of 
 Mr. Burt, the inventor of the solar compass, and 
 he was overjoyed to find his instrument working 
 according to his predictions. The deflection was 
 so great that he summoned his party and sent 
 them out in all directions to search for the iron 
 which he was convinced must exist in large quan- 
 tities in the near vicinity. Every one of them re- 
 turned in a short time with specimens of the ore. 
 Thus was discovered the first of the famous ranges 
 that to-day produce one-third of all the iron mined 
 in the United States. 
 
 At the time of the discovery of iron deposits 
 there were not over fifty people in Marquette 
 County. Expeditions were fitted out in each 
 succeeding year, and companies began to operate 
 the mines. They worked against great natural 
 obstacles in the remote wilderness. It is hard 
 for us to realize how far out of the world this 
 country seemed at that time. When Michigan 
 was admitted as a state in 1837, the reception 
 of the upper peninsula in compensation for a 
 cession to Ohio of the well-known Toledo tract 
 
35° The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 was regarded with the greatest dissatisfaction. 
 The " State Gazetteer " of that year spoke of 
 the new possession as a wild tract of twenty 
 thousand miles of howling wilderness, while one 
 of the political songs of the time told with scorn 
 how the people were being coerced into trading 
 away the southern land for " that poor frozen 
 land of Michigan." Within twenty years that 
 sentiment underwent a swift and radical change. 
 The first companies struggled along in the 
 wilderness carrying their ore to a forge on the 
 Carp River, bringing it first by Indian trail and 
 then by wagon road twelve miles down to the 
 waterside, where it was loaded on sailing vessels 
 by being put on wheelbarrows and rolled up a 
 steep plank. In 1852 the Marquette Iron Com- 
 pany shipped six barrels by this laborious method 
 to Cleveland, which was the first ever received 
 from Lake Superior. The first considerable 
 shipment was one of five thousand tons three 
 years later. Then the great panic of 1857 
 stopped people for the time being from ventur- 
 ing their money in new and unproved enter- 
 prises ; but the Civil War created a great demand 
 for iron, and from that time the industry has 
 flourished. 
 
Three Great Industries of the Lakes 351 
 
 When transportation faciHties were needed, the 
 " Soo" Canal was built, and at that very time Mr. 
 Hem an B. Ely began an agitation for the build- 
 ing of a railroad in this region. Owing to his 
 influence and under his direction the Iron Moun- 
 tain Road was built from Marquette to the shore 
 of Lake Superior, the first road in the whole 
 northern country. Mr. Ely was well known in 
 other lake states, as well as being one of the 
 leading pioneers in the north. He had built 
 the first telegraph lines from Buffalo to Detroit 
 and from Cleveland to Pittsburg, had been presi- 
 dent of a railroad company at Cleveland whose 
 holdings were the foundation of the Lake Shore 
 and Michigan Southern, and was director of the 
 Northern Pacific. He was in all his activities 
 a leader to whom the Great Lakes owe much. 
 Railroads built during these years in Ohio and 
 Pennsylvania helped to solve the problem of iron 
 transportation, while the freight traffic in iron ore 
 helped these young roads to live. The enor- 
 mous demand for iron, due to the great era of 
 railroad building, made furnaces spring up in the 
 Cleveland, Mahoning, and Shenango valleys, and 
 the Michigan industry was fairly launched. 
 
 For a long time only the Michigan and Wis- 
 
352 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 consin ranges were worked, but in 1875 the 
 presence of large deposits in the Vermilion 
 Range of Minnesota was brought by Mr. George 
 Stone to the attention of Charlemagne Tower, a 
 prominent lawyer and business man of Pennsyl- 
 vania. Mr. Tower had had large experience in 
 coal mining, both in the examination of coal 
 fields in Pennsylvania for his cases in the law 
 courts, and as an owner and manager of com- 
 panies. He sent an expedition to explore the 
 Minnesota ranges, and becoming convinced of 
 their wealth proceeded at once to their develop- 
 ment. The friends and business associates whom 
 he endeavored to enlist in this venture were 
 sceptical, so Mr. Tower had to proceed single- 
 handed in his task. 
 
 It is little wonder that men doubted the 
 practicability of Mr. Tower's schemes ; it is the 
 more worthy of admiration that he dared to 
 undertake them amid the almost insuperable 
 obstacles. To plant a mining establishment 
 ninety miles north of Duluth and seventy miles 
 west in a direct line from Lake Superior in a 
 region that had no intermediate connections with 
 even the outskirts of civilization seemed an 
 impossible task. The country was densely 
 
From Stereograph, copyright, 101)6. by Underwood & Underwood, New York. 
 
 Iron Ore at a Lake Superior Port 
 
Three Great Industries of the Lakes 353 
 
 wooded, with only very small streams and im- 
 passable swamps breaking the forest stretch. 
 Provisions, supplies, tools, — everything needed 
 for the camp must be taken either in midwinter 
 over frozen ground and snow when the tempera- 
 ture was usually forty degrees below zero, or in 
 summer on the backs of men and in Indian 
 canoes over a most circuitous route. A railroad 
 must be built to carry the ore, and dock and 
 harbor facilities must be provided on Lake Supe- 
 rior. All this Charlemagne Tower undertook at 
 the age of seventy-three, and carried through to 
 a wonderful success. He built a railroad from 
 the mines to Two Harbors on Lake Superior ; 
 he selected Two Harbors as the best place for 
 his docks, roundhouses, machine-shops, and saw- 
 mills ; and he opened up his mines in the iron 
 district. 
 
 In August, 1884, the railroad was finished and 
 the first shipments of ore were made. These 
 shipments were shrewdly distributed among manu- 
 facturers of three states leading in iron industries, 
 Illinois, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, instead of being 
 sent to a single dealer. They met with instant 
 favor from all the companies. The quality of all 
 the northern ranges had been found to be very 
 
354 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 fine. The percentage of metallic iron contained 
 in the best red hematites shipped from the 
 Michigan mines had been over sixty per cent ; 
 this first shipment from Minnesota contained 
 sixty-eight per cent, and with its success the 
 future of the country was assured. The country 
 opened up rapidly, the railroad was carried to 
 Duluth, and a town sprang up about the docks 
 at Two Harbors. In the first year 68,000 tons 
 were shipped ; three years later the output had 
 jumped to 400,000 tons, and Minnesota had 
 been transformed in four years from a non-min- 
 eral district into one of the foremost iron markets 
 of the United States. Fifteen hundred men were 
 working in its mines, and five thousand were 
 directly or indirectly employed by the industry. 
 In 1887 the Mesabi Range began to be opened 
 up, and together the five ranges, — the Marquette, 
 Gogebic, Menominee, Vermilion, and Mesabi, — 
 located in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, 
 supply to-day more iron than any single country 
 in the world. 
 
 This is the history of three of the leading in- 
 dustries of the Great Lakes. In the nineteenth 
 century there came to be many more which have 
 contributed much to the prosperity of the region. 
 
Three Great Industries of the Lakes 355 
 
 From the earliest occupation by the French the 
 Great Lakes have offered not only a comfortable 
 means of livelihood to the settler who came to 
 their shores, but also wealth to the country which 
 possessed them. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 SHIPPING ON THE LAKES 
 
 NOWHERE has the life of the Great 
 Lakes developed more clearly an indi- 
 viduality of its own than in its ship- 
 ping. The conditions which confronted the 
 navigators on these great inland seas were pe- 
 culiar to their .environment. The size of the 
 lakes made types of vessel designed for ocean use 
 more suitable than river craft ; yet the fact that 
 they were not one inland sea, but a succession of 
 lakes divided by narrow channels, differentiated 
 them widely from the ocean both in the needs and 
 possibilities of their navigation. To meet these 
 special conditions and to suit the demands of the 
 commerce in which they were engaged the ship- 
 builders of the lakes have designed vessels which 
 are unique and interesting. 
 
 The French found on the Great Lakes a type 
 of boat which was so well adapted to the exi- 
 gencies of combined lake and river travel that it 
 
 356 
 
Shipping on the Lakes 357 
 
 has persisted to this day. This was the birch- 
 bark canoe. But it was not the small pleasure 
 canoe of our modern ideas. Even the first 
 canoes that the Jesuit fathers found the Indians 
 using before 1630 were large enough to transport 
 a family of five or six with all their baggage, their 
 kettles, blankets, and other household goods. 
 With the development of the fur trade and the 
 coming of white men in large numbers the canoes 
 became twenty and thirty feet long, and this style 
 persisted as the main water craft until well into 
 the nineteenth century. The merchants from 
 Montreal went up to Fort William in a fleet of 
 ninety canoes, each carrying four tons' burden and 
 navigated by eight or ten men, and as late as 
 1820 the furs of Lake Superior were sent south 
 by John Jacob Astor from his depot at Mackinac 
 to the trading post at Chicago in similar vessels. 
 It was no uncommon occurrence to see at Mack- 
 inac and Detroit a flotilla of fifty or sixty canoes 
 sweep up to the shore, the Indians paddling si- 
 lently and the voyageurs singing a gay Canadian 
 boat-song as they moved their paddles in swift 
 unison at the rate of forty or even sixty strokes a 
 minute. These men measured distances by the 
 number of times they had stopped on the journey to 
 
25^ The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 smoke, and would tell you that a place was 
 " three or four pipes away," because the call had 
 been three times given for "pipes — pipes" by 
 the steersman, and at the word every paddle had 
 been drawn in, every pipe lighted, and a few 
 whiffs taken before the three-minute rest was up 
 and they started on again. Sometimes these 
 rests were once in every two miles, sometimes 
 less frequently, and with their help the men 
 paddled from morning to night, singing as 
 cheerily after their forty-mile run as in the 
 morning. 
 
 Other boats were used by the Indians and 
 French, but not so universally. The Indian 
 pirogue was a canoe-shaped boat hollowed out 
 of one of the huge cotton-trees, — a vessel forty 
 or fifty feet long and holding thirty men, but too 
 heavy to carry easily around the numerous port- 
 ages. The French introduced into the lakes 
 in the eighteenth century the bateau, a flat-bot- 
 tomed boat with sharp-pointed ends, which re- 
 sisted the storms better than the clumsy scow 
 barges, and was the precursor of the present 
 two-masted Mackinaw boat. On the canoe and 
 bateau sails were sometimes used, but only in very 
 favorable weather, and in any of these boats all but 
 
Shipping on the Lakes 359 
 
 the most experienced navigators hugged closely 
 the shores of the stormy, wind-swept waters. To 
 us with our eight and ten and twelve thousand 
 ton steel vessels, which find the lake storms a 
 source of dread and danger, it seems incredible 
 that the greater part of the navigation for three 
 centuries was in these frail, light canoes and 
 bateaux. 
 
 With the story of the pioneer sailing vessel of 
 La Salle, the sixty-ton Griffon of the seventeenth 
 century design, with her high stern deck and her 
 two masts with clumsy square sails, we are already 
 familiar. After she was lost in 1679, sailing ves- 
 sels did not again appear on the lakes for nearly 
 seventy-five years. Then there were two on 
 Lake Superior, one the property of the man 
 who made the first attempt at copper mining in 
 that region. The first sailing vessels to come 
 into historical importance were the Beaver and 
 the Gladwin, which did such efficient service at 
 the siege of Detroit in 1763. War brought 
 out the need of such vessels, and a shipyard 
 started by the English on Navy Island in the 
 Niagara River turned out several schooners dur- 
 ing the next few years. At the end of the eigh- 
 teenth century, however, the entire fleet of Lakes 
 
360 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 Huron, Erie, and Michigan consisted of only 
 three schooners and six sloops, and no one 
 dreamed of the commercial changes to come 
 before another century was over. Under the 
 orders of the English government a Mr. Collins 
 had made in 1788 a careful survey of the lakes 
 and had stated that vessels on Lake Ontario 
 might be of sixty or even seventy-five or eighty 
 tons, but those on the other lakes should not 
 exceed fifteen tons' burden ; but the ship-builders 
 paid little attention to his instructions. 
 
 The steamboat made its appearance on the 
 Great Lakes in 1818 in the shape of a side- 
 wheeler, naively called the Walk-in-the-Water, 
 which was launched at Buffalo. Even a con- 
 temporary described her as a "weak but elegant 
 boat," and an oil painting shows her to be a 
 little craft with a curious tiller at the stern, no 
 pilot-house, a smoke stack of six lengths of stove- 
 pipe put together, and unboxed wheels. She was 
 a profitable venture while she lasted, making the 
 trip from Buffalo to Detroit with forty or fifty 
 passengers, each of whom paid eighteen dollars, 
 but often taking thirteen days to do it. For 
 four years she held a monopoly on the lakes 
 as the solitary steam-propelled craft, and then one 
 
Copyright, !'■**>■'>, by Detroit Publibliiiig Co. 
 
 The Old and the New 
 
 General Cass's Canoe and a Modern Freight Steamer 
 
Shipping on the Lakes 361 
 
 stormy night in October she went ashore after rid- 
 ing out a furious gale. None of her passengers were 
 lost, and tliere is an old picture portraying this 
 mournful event, " one of the greatest misfortunes 
 that has ever befallen us," as a journal of the day 
 said. The vessel is depicted as going to pieces 
 on the shore while its passengers stand up straight 
 in unruffled silk hats, pointing apparently at spots 
 of interest in the vicinity, — a very different state 
 of affairs from that told of by those who spent 
 that fearful night on the little vessel hoping for 
 daylight to come before she was knocked to 
 pieces. 
 
 The steamboat did not disappear from the 
 lakes, as the journal had feared it would, but in 
 1827 the first steamboat reached Sault Ste. Marie, 
 carrying among her passengers General Winfield 
 Scott, who came to visit the military post there. 
 She made no effort to pass the barrier of the 
 rapids, as even the little canal built by the North- 
 west Company in 1790 for canoes and bateaux 
 had been blown up in the War of 18 12. The 
 first steamboat reached Chicago in 1832, and 
 from that time on they began to multiply on the 
 lakes. It was not, however, till 1845 'hat the 
 need of steam navigation for working successfully 
 
362 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 the rich copper mines south of Lake Superior 
 made it so necessary to have some craft not 
 dependent on the uncertainties of the wind that 
 the mine owners combined and bought a little 
 steamboat which they had hauled laboriously 
 over the portage on rollers, an undertaking that 
 occupied seven weeks. 
 
 The great need of connecting the rich Lake 
 Superior region with the other lakes, — urged 
 upon the people for twenty- years, — brought 
 about in 1855 the building of the "Soo" Canal. 
 After much discussion Congress voted in 1852 
 three-quarters of a million acres of land to aid 
 the state of Michigan in building this canal. 
 This was done in spite of the opposition of 
 many Eastern members to spending so much 
 money on a project for so remote a wilderness. 
 The type and size of the canal was fought over 
 by engineers and statesmen, and it was finally 
 agreed that a lock two hundred and fifty feet 
 long would provide amply for any vessels that 
 would ever navigate those waters. A young man 
 who was visiting at Sault Ste. Marie at the time, 
 Mr. Charles T. Harvey, became convinced that 
 this was too small an estimate. Mr. Harvey was 
 neither an engineer nor a canal builder, but was 
 
Shipping on the Lakes 363 
 
 a man with foresight. He went before the legis- 
 lature with plans, drawn under his direction by a 
 New York engineer, for a lock at least one hun- 
 dred feet longer, and was met with ridicule. The 
 longest vessel on the lakes was then only one 
 hundred and sixty-seven feet, and the lock pro- 
 posed by Harvey and the Fairbanks Company, 
 who were backing him, would be the largest lock 
 in the world. Harvey won his point, and was 
 given charge of constructing the canal. It was a 
 tremendous undertaking for those days. The 
 nearest railroad was many hundred miles away ; 
 the steamboats were slow ; it took six weeks to 
 get a reply to a letter mailed to New York, and 
 agents had to be sent to that city to get gangs 
 of laborers from the immigrant population. The 
 temperature on the Sault was at thirty-five de- 
 grees below zero much of the time during the 
 winter months, and the men were necessarily 
 poorly housed and cared for. At one time an 
 epidemic of cholera killed ten per cent of the 
 men, but work went on each day. Again two 
 thousand laborers struck, and Harvey hid all 
 the provisions in the woods until they returned 
 to work, which they did in twenty-four hours. 
 Within two years, and at a cost of less than a 
 
364 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 million dollars, the canal was completed. Im- 
 mediately the problems of lake navigation were 
 entirely changed. One of the difficulties of the 
 cautious Mr. Collins of seventy years before, 
 who wanted the size of boats limited to fifteen 
 tons, was removed in the building of a channel 
 around the rapids of the Sault. In fifteen years 
 the lock was enlarged and then later enlarged 
 again, till in 1896 the famous eight-hundred-foot 
 Poe lock was built by the army engineer of that 
 name, at the cost of four million dollars. Mr. 
 Harvey, at the fiftieth anniversary of the build- 
 ing of his first lock, came to the celebration of 
 the event and heard discussion of the possible 
 need of a lock larger than the present one. Thus 
 in the memory of living men there has been built 
 up a great commercial marine of over five thousand 
 vessels, and by the spending of fifty millions 
 of dollars in deepening all the lake channels 
 and cutting canals, the four upper lakes have 
 been united into one great waterway over which 
 passes a large proportion of the productive wealth 
 of the United States. Yearly one hundred mil- 
 lion tons of freight pass through this lock, which 
 is twice the record of London and Liverpool 
 combined in their twelve-month season. 
 
Shipping on the Lakes 2^5 
 
 With the opening of the " Soo " Canal the old 
 conventional type of lake vessel began to disap- 
 pear, and the designs were accommodated to 
 the special demands of trade and natural condi- 
 tions. The sailing vessel is coming to be a thing 
 of the past, and the men who navigated the tur- 
 bulent waters and were caught in gales and ice- 
 jams in their wooden schooners rejoice in its 
 disappearance. Since 1873 the shipyards have 
 built less and less of this type of ship, and in 
 our own day the steel vessel has come to take 
 its place. 
 
 The canoe served its purpose for fur trade, 
 and the schooner for lumber ; but the mineral 
 industries of Lake Superior, and a little later 
 the grain crops of the West, demanded a dif- 
 ferent kind of vessel. With the coming of 
 steam power and the development of the " Soo " 
 Canal came into being the style of vessel which 
 has been well described as a " steel trough with 
 a Hd on it." These vessels are built solely to 
 carry as much cargo as is consistent with safety. 
 They are huge steel freighters five and six hun- 
 dred feet long, with a hold whose capacity is 
 from six to twelve thousand tons of iron ore 
 or a like amount of wheat. Astern is the ma- 
 
^66 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 chinery with a smoke stack and a row of cabins 
 visible above the deck, and three or four hun- 
 dred feet off — the length of a city block — 
 is the deck-house, containing officers' quarters 
 with the wheel-house and bridge. Within this 
 house is invariably to be found a man of rare 
 skill and experience. To the casual observer 
 the narrow lake passages and the crowded, 
 winding channels and flats of the rivers would 
 seem to preclude so long and unwieldy a craft, 
 but the lake sailor can navigate her with the string 
 of barges which she often has in tow through any 
 passage with skill and ease. The bows of these 
 vessels are high and rounded to meet and part the 
 heavy waves of the frequent lake storms, and the 
 whole shell is built with special regard to strength, 
 both to resist these gales and to bear the impact 
 of the thousands of tons of wheat and iron which 
 are to be poured from grain elevators and iron 
 bins into their holds. A crew of twenty-five men 
 can handle one of these vessels, but they have no 
 easy time on long stretches between ports. They 
 must be ever on the alert in their short, swift 
 trips from lake to lake. 
 
 In the short summer season the motto of lake 
 transportation is speed, and science has bent its 
 
Shipping on the Lakes 367 
 
 energies most successfully to that end. Up in 
 the mines of Michigan and Minnesota a big 
 steam-operated bucket dips down into the earth 
 and scoops from the hillside a load of iron ore 
 which it dumps into steel cars with openings at 
 the bottom, at a cost of five cents a ton ! At the 
 docks of Lake Superior, — and the total length 
 of the ore docks on the lake is well over five 
 miles, — the bottom of the car is turned aside 
 and the whole load of red earth rushes either 
 down long chutes directly into the holds of the 
 vessels, or into big buildings called bins or pockets, 
 from which it can be poured from a great height 
 into the vessels filling them at fifteen or sixteen 
 hatches simultaneously. Such records have been 
 made as the loading of more than ten thousand 
 tons of iron ore into a steamer in less than an 
 hour and a half, and the usual time for the oper- 
 ation is only three or four hours. The cost of 
 this loading is made, by the use of this machinery, 
 less than three cents a ton. After the swiftest 
 passage that can be made the vessel reaches the 
 ports of the lower lakes, and there the devices for 
 unloading are even more wonderful. From a 
 bridgelike crane hangs a huge scoop shaped like a 
 clam-shell, which dips down into the vessel's hold 
 
368 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 and pulls out ten tons of ore at a time, swings it 
 to one side and drops it on a mountainous heap 
 of red earth. From there it is put into steel cars 
 which, at the furnaces of Pennsylvania, are picked 
 off the track by an immense crane as though they 
 were mere children's toys and dumped on the ore 
 piles from which the furnaces are fed. In the 
 interval while the ore was being unloaded from 
 the hold of the vessel, coal for the return cargo 
 has been poured in, and in an incredibly short 
 time the freighter is started on her northward 
 journey. So successfully have time and expense 
 been minimized by the elimination of hand labor 
 that the freight charges of the lakes are the 
 wonder of the whole commercial world. Of 
 some kinds of freight the cost of transporting 
 a ton from Buffalo to Duluth is only eighty- 
 five cents. The railroads have given up the 
 attempt to compete and have bought up instead 
 the lines of steamers with which they make con- 
 nection. The recent tendency on the lakes is 
 to consolidation of ownership. To-day the Pitts- 
 burg Steamship Company owns a fleet of one 
 hundred and eight vessels, whose total length 
 if put in one long line would be over eight 
 miles. These fleets are many times the size of 
 
Shipping on the Lakes 369 
 
 those owned by Americans on the ocean. In- 
 deed, this is one of the striking contrasts between 
 lake and ocean traffic. A very large proportion 
 of lake vessels is owned by Americans, while the 
 reverse is true on the ocean. 
 
 Grain is handled in much the same manner as 
 iron ore. Millions of bushels come into the 
 ports of Lake Michigan and Lake Superior, — to 
 Fort William, Duluth, West Superior, Milwau- 
 kee, Chicago, and minor ports, — and are stored 
 in huge fireproof buildings on the water front, 
 known as grain elevators. These structures are 
 of all sizes, holding from thirty and forty thou- 
 sand bushels of wheat to a million or more. They 
 are equipped with machinery for scouring, clean- 
 ing, and drying the grain, and for pouring it 
 into the vessels. The unloading is done either 
 by means of an endless chain of buckets which 
 work on a long spout or " leg " lowered into 
 the hatch, or by " pipes " or shafts from the ele- 
 vators into the fifteen or twenty hatches. Down 
 these pipes the grain rushes with a buzzing sound 
 at the rate of one hundred and twenty-five thou- 
 sand bushels an hour. For the unloading process 
 the grain is drawn out by suction through similar 
 pipes, the force supplied by powerful engines 
 
37° The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 which give a pressure of several hundred pounds 
 to the square inch. In 1907 grain came into the 
 lake ports which would have made, when con- 
 verted into flour, forty-three million barrels of 
 flour. Reckoning that two hundred and fifty 
 one-pound loaves can be made from a barrel, this 
 grain would have supplied the world with ten 
 billion loaves of bread. 
 
 Chicago and Buffalo, the principal gateways of 
 entrance and exit for grain, have large systems of 
 elevators with a capacity of millions of bushels, 
 and in the winter months these are not sufficient, 
 but the ice-bound vessels as they wait in the har- 
 bors of Chicago and Lake Superior become float- 
 ing storage warehouses, ready to sail east with 
 their cargoes the moment navigation is open. 
 
 These cargo freighters, with the huge barges 
 of similar construction that they tow behind them 
 in lines of two or three, are the most character- 
 istic vessels of the lakes. Another style of ship, 
 of which much was expected at the time of its in- 
 vention, was the whaleback, a long, cigar-shaped 
 steel craft whose decks were so low that they 
 were constantly washed by the waves. These 
 boats were designed, as are all lake boats, to have 
 the greatest possible empty space for cargo, a 
 
Shipping on the Lakes 371 
 
 condition made possible by the fact that in their 
 short voyages they do not need to carry large 
 stores of coal or provisions. • The whaleback is 
 a blunt-ended hulk with rounded gunwales, which 
 from its appearance and from its manner of root- 
 ing and rolling about in the waves has gained the 
 lake nickname of the " pig." These vessels are 
 unique and picturesque, but not so successful as 
 the usual style of freighters. Moreover, they 
 have reached their maximum size and cannot be 
 improved or enlarged without change of shape. 
 
 The passenger steamers of the lakes are models 
 of comfort, built more and more on the style, and 
 even approximating the size of, the ocean liners, 
 and after them there remains only one other type 
 of vessel that deserves mention, — the ice-breaker. 
 The situation of the Great Lakes on the extreme 
 confines of the region whose climate makes it fit 
 for the uses of civilized man keeps them ice- 
 bound and closes their commerce for five months 
 in the year. Early in April vessel owners begin 
 to watch with interest the straits of Mackinac, 
 Sault Ste. Marie, and Detroit. When the chan- 
 nel at Mackinac shows water instead of ice, navi- 
 gation of the lakes has opened. Then strong 
 ice-breakers force their way through the floating 
 
372 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 ice with a string of vessels at their sterns. They 
 are powerful craft with a screw at the bow as well 
 as at the stern, the first to suck the water from 
 under the ice so that the boat climbing upon it 
 may crush it down, breaking it and throwing it 
 out of the way, and the second to propel the ves- 
 sel through the two or three or even four feet of 
 solid blue ice that have been broken in this way. 
 This is an American invention which has been 
 copied in all northern waters. Russia sent one 
 of her foremost generals to study its construction, 
 and it is now in use on her frozen lakes and seas. 
 The tale of lake shipping is a tale that can 
 only be begun in the limits of a single chapter. 
 There are the car-ferries of Detroit, by which 
 trains are carried across the river. These are 
 now so crowded that a tunnel under the river is 
 in process of construction to relieve the conges- 
 tion. There are the stories of traffic at the " Soo " 
 Canal, through which for six months of the year 
 a big steamer passes in every fifteen minutes of 
 the night and day, and of the Detroit River, with 
 a record of a vessel every thirteen minutes, and 
 of an average of two hundred tons of freight a 
 minute for a season of two hundred and thirty 
 days. There are the ship-building yards at 
 
Shipping on the Lakes 373 
 
 Cleveland, where thirty-one steel freighters were 
 ordered in a single winter, and more are turned 
 out every year. The ships of the lakes are built 
 on the lakes, and the shipyards are among the 
 busiest centres of all that country. Lastly, there 
 is the sad tale of wrecks and loss of lives, for since 
 the first canoes were lost and the Griffon and the 
 Walk-in-the-Water went down, the waters have 
 exacted their annual toll, and fishing schooners and 
 seven-thousand-ton freighters alike have broken 
 in two or have foundered and been dashed to 
 pieces on the rocks, while of the tale of hairbreadth 
 escapes there is no end. 
 
 Lake shipping within the limits of its own 
 waterways has developed in the nineteenth cen- 
 tury. In the twentieth is to come the connect- 
 ing of the lakes with the Atlantic by canal and 
 river, and the story of the twentieth century will 
 be of vessels going direct from the ports of the 
 Great Lakes to the ports of the Old World. 
 With this prophecy the tale would seem to be 
 complete. 
 
CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CITY 
 
 THE last sixty years of the nineteenth 
 century witnessed on the shores of the 
 Great Lakes the development of the 
 city. The towns which we have traced through 
 their early stages as forts, trading posts, and 
 villages began in 1840 to make their appearance 
 on the census lists with populations that could be 
 counted in thousands instead of hundreds. If 
 we reckon a population of eight thousand or over 
 as the requisite number to raise a town to the 
 rank of city, Buffalo with eighteen thousand and 
 Detroit with nine thousand inhabitants were in 
 1840 the only cities on the lakes. Cleveland 
 had six thousand, and Chicago and Milwaukee 
 timidly entered the lists with records of less than 
 five thousand and two thousand respectively. In 
 the proportionate size of cities in the whole 
 United States these five ranged from being six- 
 teenth, as was Buffalo, to being fifty-fourth, as 
 
 374 
 
The Development of the City 375 
 
 was Chicago, and down to Milwaukee, which was 
 the seventy-ninth on the list. In 1906 these five 
 cities are among the first twelve on the list, and 
 their joint population is three million six hun- 
 dred thousand, nearly one hundred times the to- 
 tal population of sixty-five years ago. Figures 
 express this change as well as anything can, but 
 even figures can hardly suggest the wonder of 
 this unparalleled development. It makes this 
 last era of the life of the Great Lakes one of 
 great and unique interest. 
 
 Immediately after 1840 this swift growth of 
 the city began. Within twenty years Detroit 
 was five times as large as in 1840, Buffalo and 
 Cleveland were seven times as large, while Chi- 
 cago and Milwaukee had multiplied their num- 
 bers by twenty and twenty-five. Smaller cities, 
 too, like Toledo had had a rapid increase in their 
 population. This sudden tide of immigration 
 and of urban concentration was the natural result 
 of the widespread westward movement of the 
 twenty-five preceding years which had developed 
 the country and created demands for central 
 markets, and of the rise of the great industries 
 described in the preceding chapters with their 
 attendants, the railroad and the steamboat. No 
 
376 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 communities have ever come into being for more 
 immediate commercial reasons than the cities of 
 the Great Lakes, and the immense wealth derived 
 from their great industries has been directly- 
 responsible for their rapid growth and succeeding 
 prosperity. With this story of the industrial side 
 of the life of the lakes we are all familiar. 
 Each city has necessarily passed through a stage 
 when it spent its time and energy trying with 
 breathless haste to keep pace with the outside 
 demands made upon it by commerce. Now that 
 stage has passed, at least in so far as this indus- 
 trial side takes precedence over everything else 
 and stands out preeminent and alone as the 
 characteristic spirit of the lake city. Great 
 fortunes have been and are being made, and 
 reasonable prosperity has come to thousands of 
 citizens. The last twenty years have seen these 
 cities broaden their interests, and stand out as 
 centres of education, art, sociology, politics, and 
 religion, till now they are leaders as types of all- 
 round development, including all these and many 
 other lines. 
 
 Each city claims and has a right to claim an 
 individual spirit and an achievement of its own. 
 But to the student of the past and present of 
 
The Development of the City 377 
 
 these lake dwellers there comes the evidence of a 
 broader unity under whose general aims and 
 purposes, fostered by similar conditions, the local 
 successes have been accomplished. 
 
 In education these cities are preeminent. 
 They have been willing to expend large sums on 
 the public school systems, and have adapted high 
 educational principles to local needs with an 
 independence that has made for a departure from 
 many old and conventional methods, but has 
 resulted almost always in greater efficiency. The 
 large proportion of foreign-born children in the 
 public schools has created many problems and 
 brought the opportunity for great success in 
 dealing with them. Nor does state and city 
 interest stop with the usual public school system. 
 Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ohio, Indiana, 
 and Illinois have strong state universities, for 
 whose support they give lavishly ; and beside 
 them have grown up three other great univer- 
 sities, Chicago and Northwestern in Chicago, and 
 the Western Reserve in Cleveland. There is a 
 widespread enthusiasm for higher education, and 
 these educational centres exert a great influence 
 both as scientific experiment stations, whose dis- 
 coveries are hailed with delight by the farmer and 
 
378 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 the mechanic, and as dominant centres of thought. 
 The universities and schools do not wait for the 
 people to come within their walls. They go out 
 with exhibitions and instruction of all kinds. 
 The state legislatures have instituted systems of 
 travelling and branch libraries, and education is 
 being diffused among the people. 
 
 As a natural result of high average intelligence 
 and of industrial conditions there has originated 
 in the region bordering on the lakes a political 
 unrest which is being worked out, under the 
 leadership of the cities, into an encouraging in- 
 dependence of party spirit and a striving for the 
 improvement of municipal and state conditions. 
 With the coming of the city there have arisen 
 problems entirely new to the administrators, and 
 these each city is working out in its own way. 
 Cleveland by government by commission, and 
 the other cities by reform mayors running on 
 independent platforms, and everywhere by in- 
 telligent open discussion of such questions as 
 municipal ownership of street railways, control 
 of corporations, labor questions, and other matters 
 of public interest which make the party divisions 
 based on live social and industrial issues, not on 
 state and national party platforms. The region 
 
The Development of the City 379 
 
 of the lower lakes is a political storm centre for 
 the nation as well as for the immediate locality, 
 and conditions there are likely to have great in- 
 fluence throughout the country. 
 
 Municipal improvement has long been the 
 watchword of all parties, and the result has been 
 the development of splendid water fronts, the 
 setting apart of land for beautiful park and boule- 
 vard systems, the provision of playgrounds for 
 children, and the constant beautifying of the cities. 
 Modern architecture has had its chance here, and 
 has proved itself. The results have made our 
 modern lake city the admiration of all visitors, 
 both from this country and from across the water. 
 
 The two periods of rapid industrial growth 
 and of broadening self-improvement each lake 
 city has passed through in the last sixty years. 
 Into the local details of each we have not space 
 to enter, although each is an interesting story by 
 itself. One city has come to be in size and stand- 
 ing the second city of our nation, and in passing 
 briefly over the steps of her growth we can see 
 on a large scale what have been the conditions 
 which have been met in a smaller way by her 
 neighboring cities. 
 
 With our traveller of 1 840, we visited Chicago 
 
380 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 and found her a flourishing and rapidly increasing 
 town of nearly five thousand inhabitants. Even 
 then she was recognized as a centre for the region 
 immediately surrounding her. The radius of her 
 influence has extended in a way that would have 
 seemed at that time inconceivable. Her popula- 
 tion has run up to over two millions, and in 
 wealth as well she has come to be the second 
 great financial centre of the United States, rank- 
 ing in this as in population next to New York. 
 She began her city life in 1837 with ^1993 in her 
 treasury. To get money for sanitary drainage, 
 for paving a few streets, and purchasing two fire 
 engines the finance committee of the common 
 council applied to the State Bank of Illinois for a 
 loan of twenty-five thousand dollars, to be paid 
 back within five years, — a request which the 
 State Bank politely but curtly declined to grant. 
 To-day her bank clearances amount to some 
 seven thousand million dollars. And so we 
 might go on with striking and astonishing con- 
 trasts. We have come to take large statements 
 and superlative adjectives for granted about 
 Chicago's size, wealth, and commerce. Do we 
 realize that she is the leading lake city in the 
 other lines of which we have spoken ? 
 
The Development of the City 381 
 
 The public school system of Chicago with its 
 million of children has been and is being devel- 
 oped along the best modern pedagogical princi- 
 ples by men and women who are recognized 
 leaders in the educational world. As a centre for 
 higher education the city takes high rank. Be- 
 sides its technical schools, like the Armour In- 
 stitute, it has two great universities, Chicago and 
 Northwestern. The former began its career 
 when John D. Rockefeller decided to take the 
 name and property of the old denominational 
 university of that name, sold at auction under 
 foreclosure, and to found a great institution. To 
 this end he set apart a large sum of money and 
 secured as president Dr. William R. Harper of 
 Yale. With the remarkable growth of the uni- 
 versity since it opened in 1892 with seven hun- 
 dred and two students, we are all familiar. 
 
 In music and art Chicago is preeminent, both 
 for its high grade of achievement and for the 
 widespread diffusion of its culture among its 
 citizens. In 1905 Orchestra Hall was dedicated 
 as a home for music, and this building, one of 
 the finest in the world, had been built by a popu- 
 lar subscription, to which thousands of the middle 
 and poorer classes contributed their dollars. The 
 
382 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 Chicago Art Institute has an attendance yearly of 
 over half a million visitors, a number exceeding 
 that of any art museum in America, and its 
 library is consulted annually by fifty thousand 
 people. Such a record is remarkable, and such 
 enthusiasm has produced and is producing rec- 
 ognized artists. In architectural excellence the 
 story is the same. In philanthropy and social 
 settlement work Hull House, under the leader- 
 ship of Jane Addams, is only the most conspicuous 
 of many powerful agencies for good. 
 
 For the Great Lakes to have developed, in the 
 sixty years that have marked the growth of the 
 big city throughout the land, five of the twelve 
 largest cities of the United States is a remark- 
 able showing. Not only have these cities become 
 leaders industrially, politically, and socially, but 
 they are constantly increasing at a rapid rate in 
 size, volume of commerce, and most of all in 
 plans and forecasts for the future. From 1880 
 to 1890 the most rapid growth of the city was in 
 this region. During these ten years, while the 
 rate of increase of the ocean ports ranged from 
 San Francisco's fourteen per cent to New York's 
 thirty-eight per cent, and that of the river cities 
 from Cincinnati's nine per cent to St. Louis' 
 
The Development of the City 383 
 
 twenty-seven, no one of the six great ports of the 
 lakes fell below an increase of thirty-seven per 
 cent, and Chicago's ran up to fifty-four, and 
 Toledo's to sixty-one. This is a striking exhibi- 
 tion of the movement of population in the wake 
 of commercial opportunity. 
 
 In the Old World such a group of cities situ- 
 ated close together on immense bodies of water 
 would create an individual empire of great wealth 
 and prosperity. In the United States they are 
 recognized as a leading factor in our prosperity, 
 and a centre from which not only will great wealth 
 and natural resources be evolved and distributed, 
 but great leaders, great policies, and great ideals 
 will come forth, making the lake region a force to 
 be reckoned with and depended upon in the 
 future of the Nation. 
 
A BRIEF LIST OF BOOKS 
 
 General Works 
 
 There is no important general work covering the entire field. 
 The best single book is Charles Moore's The Northwest under 
 Three Flags, 1 63 5-1 796. B. A. Hinsdale's Old Northwest 
 (2 vols.) deals with this region, but with especial emphasis on 
 the geographical and political phases. Francis Parkman treats 
 of French and English occupation in his Series of Historical 
 Narratives, France and England in North America, the nine vol- 
 umes of which will be cited under their individual names. 
 Besides his Narrative and Critical History of America in eight 
 volumes, Justin Winsor has three books on the history of this 
 region: Cartier to Frontenac, 1 5 34-1 700; The Mississippi 
 Basin; and The Westward Movement. Under this heading 
 should be mentioned the publications of the various historical 
 societies of the lake states, especially the Buffalo, Michigan, 
 Wisconsin, and Minnesota collections. 
 
 Part I. Discovery and Exploration, 161 5—1 700 
 
 This period is taken up in Parkman' s Pioneers of France in 
 the New World, The Jesuits in North America, La Salle and 
 the Discovery of the Great West, and Count Frontenac and New 
 France under Louis XI F. The seventy-three volumes oi Jesuit 
 Relations and Allied Volumes, edited by Reuben Gold Thwaites, 
 are the source books for accounts of the Jesuits. A modern 
 2 c 385 . 
 
386 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 book which covers this period is C. W. Colby's Canadian 
 Types of the Old Regime, 1608-1698. E. B. O'Callaghan's 
 Documentary History of the State of New York (4 vols. ), I 849, 
 and L. H. Morgan's League of the Iroquois (2 vols.), 1901, 
 give good accounts of the Indians, while the former has reprints 
 of valuable maps and documents. 
 
 The original accounts of the voyages of the explorers are as 
 follows : Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, translated by C. P. 
 Otis, and edited by E. F. Slafter (3 vols.) (a handy one- 
 volume edition is that of W. L. Grant, 1907); Relation of the 
 Discoveries and Voyages of Cavelier de La Salle from 1 679 to 
 168 1, translated by M. B. Anderson; and Louis Hennepin's 
 A New Discovery of a Vast Country in America (2 vols.), and 
 Lahontan's New Voyages to North America, both reprinted and 
 edited by R. G. Thwaites. C. W. Butterfield has written a 
 History of Brule's Discoveries and Explorations, 1610-1626. 
 The story of the pageant of Saint Lusson comes to us from his 
 Proces- Verbal in the Wisconsin Historical Collections, xi, 26, 
 and in Father Claude Dablon's account in the Jesuit Relations, 
 Iv, 105-115. 
 
 Part II. The Struggle for Possession, 1700— 1832 
 
 For the struggle between France and England Parkman's 
 Half Century of Conflict (2 vols.), Montcalm and Wolfe 
 (2 vols.), and Conspiracy of Pontiac (2 vols.) give the best 
 connected account. S. Farmer's History of Detroit and Michi- 
 gan, A. Hulbert's The Niagara River, and other local histories 
 of Michigan, New York, Ohio, and Niagara, as well as chroni- 
 cles of the war, contribute to this history. Mr. C. M. Burton 
 has published a very interesting pamphlet on Cadillac's Village, 
 or Detroit under Cadillac, which is the result of his own re- 
 search in the records of this time. Besides Parkman's two- 
 
A Brief List of Books 387 
 
 volume story of the Conspiracy of Pontiac, it is well to read 
 Major Robert Rogers' Journals of the Siege of Detroit, and 
 Concise Account of North America, 1765, and also a Diary of 
 the Siege of Detroit, edited with other documents by F. B. 
 Hough, and The Gladwin Manuscripts, edited by Charles 
 Moore. Alexander Henry tells his own story in Travels and 
 Adventures in Canada and the Indian Territories, 1 809. 
 
 For the period of the war between England and America, 
 Henry Adams' History of the United States, 1800-1817 
 (9 vols.), is the authority. T. Roosevelt in his The Winning 
 of the West, 1777-1807 (5 vols.), gives his fifth volume to 
 St. Clair and Wayne. There are three standard works on the 
 naval part of the war, J. Barnes' Naval Actions of the War of 
 181 2, Roosevelt's The Naval War of 18 12, and A. T. 
 Mahan's Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 181 2 
 (2 vols.). There are many contemporary accounts of the 
 battles and defences of the leading participants, such as The 
 Defence of Brigadier-General Hull Written by Himself, 1 8 14. 
 Three leading documents of the Chicago massacre are the Nar- 
 rative of the Massacre at Chicago, 1844, supposed to be the 
 Kinzie account. The Chicago Massacre in 18 1 2, which is the 
 Heald account, written at a much later date by Joseph Kirkland, 
 and an anonymous document in the Michigan Pioneer and His- 
 torical Collections, viii, 648-652. The Black Hawk War is 
 treated in all histories of the time. The material about Black 
 Hawk himself is gathered from B. Drake's Life and Adventures 
 of Black Hawk (7th ed., 1846), Life of Black Hawk, Dictated 
 by Himself, 1834, and S. G. Drake's Book of the Indians 
 (8th ed., 1841), which has also accounts of Pontiac and Te- 
 cumseh. R. G. Thwaites' How George Rogers Clark Won 
 the Northwest, has an essay on the Black Hawk War, as well 
 as other interesting essays on this period. Randall Parrish's 
 
388 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 Historic Illinois should be mentioned in this connection as the 
 best book of its kind on this whole region, with a clear account 
 of the events that took place in Ilhnois and a graphic picture of 
 pioneer conditions. 
 
 The biographies of Cass and Wayne are valuable. The two 
 contemporary books on Cass are W. L. G. Smith's The Life 
 and Times of Lewis Cass, and W. T. Young's Life and Public 
 Services of Lewis Cass. A. C. McLaughlin has written a good 
 biography with the title, Lewis Cass, for the American States- 
 man Series. John R. Spears is the author of a biography of 
 Anthony Wayne, 1 903. 
 
 Part III. Occupation and Development 
 
 The bibliography of this section would include all that has 
 come before, and much from pamphlets, historical society publi- 
 cations, local histories, and records of anniversary celebrations, 
 which would make too long a list of sources. There are no 
 general works on this phase of the life of the Great Lakes. 
 Archer B. Hulbert's Historic Highways of America (16 vols.) 
 contains much that is of interest about roads to the lakes, espe- 
 cially in volumes 1, 2, 7, 8, 11, 12, and 14. J. F. Rhodes' 
 History of the United States from the Compromise of 1 850 
 (7 vols.) has in its earlier volumes valuable references and 
 accounts of happenings in its period. In general, however, one 
 must turn to the local records and state histories. 
 
 L. P. Powell has gathered and edited two volumes entitled 
 Historic Towns of the Middle States, and Historic Towns of 
 the Western States. Seven suggestive books are: Parker's 
 Rochester, A Story Historical, and H. O'Reilly's Sketches of 
 Rochester; The Niagara Book, by W. D. Howells, N. S. 
 Shaler, and others, and F. H. Severance's Old Trails on the 
 Niagara Frontier; Urann's Centennial History of Cleveland; 
 
A Brief List of Books 389 
 
 W. P. Strickland's Old Mackinaw, i860; and A. T. Andreas' 
 History of Chicago (3 vols.). 
 
 The Buffalo Historical Collections have much material about 
 the Erie Canal, as has W. W. Campbell's Life and Writings 
 of De Witt Clinton. T- L. Barton 's Commerce of the Lakes and 
 the Erie Canal, Wihiam .NorKs' Map of the Railroads and 
 Canals in the United States and Canada, August, 1834, Early 
 Chicago Railroads, 1838, and W. K. Ackerman's Early 
 Illinois Railroads, in Fergus Historical Series, No. 23, pp. 3- 
 62, and a little book. Instructions for Running Railroads, 1 862, 
 are all good for the years of rapid development about the lakes. 
 Two other books on railroads should be included : F. H. 
 Spearman's The Strategy of Great Railroads and Mott's 
 Between Ocean and Lakes. 
 
 There are two contemporary lives of Stephen A. Douglas, 
 one by J. W. Sheahan, published in i860 for campaign pur- 
 poses, and another. The Life and Speeches of Stephen A. 
 Douglas, by a " Member of the Western Bar." Allen Johnson 
 has recently brought out a valuable life of this Illinois statesman. 
 Nicolay and Hay's Abraham Lincoln, A History (10 vols.) is 
 the standard work on Lincoln. J. W. Headley has written on 
 Confederate Operations in Canada and T^ew York, giving an 
 intimate account of events in which he played an active part. 
 F. J. Turner is the authority on the for trade, which he has 
 described in The Character and Influence of the Indian Trade 
 in Wisconsin, Johns Hopkins Studies, Vol. IX. 
 
 Gazetteers and Travels 
 
 In the numerous guide-books and records of travellers of the 
 past one hundred and twenty-five years is written most vividly 
 the story of the Great Lakes. Each one of those we mention 
 contributes something to the account of the region. 
 
290 The Story of the Great Lakes 
 
 Travels. J. Carver's Travels through the Interior Parts of 
 North America tn 1766, 1767, 1768; I. Weld's Travels, 
 1 795-1 797 ; J. Harriott's Struggles through Life, etc., 1796, 
 11,97-149; SutclifF's Travels, 1804, 1805, 1806; John 
 Melish's Travels in the United States in 1806 and 1807 and 
 1809, 181 o, 1811 (2 vols.); Schviltz' Travels on an Inland 
 Voyage, I 807 and I 808 ; F. Hall's Travels in 1 8 1 6 and 1 8 I 7 ; 
 J. M. Duncan's Travels, ii, 3-120; Views of Society and 
 Manners in America, 18 18— I 820, pp. I 25-1 8 1 ; H. R. School- 
 craft's Narrative 'Journal of Travels from Detroit Northwest m 
 1820, which gives an official account of the Cass expedition; 
 William Dalton's Trai^^/j-, 1821 ; P. Stanshmy' s Pedestrian Tour 
 in 1821, giving an account of a trip from Albany to Niagara ; 
 C. H. Wilson's The Wanderer in America, 1823; T. L. 
 McKenney's Sketches of a Tour to the Lakes, which is very 
 valuable; Basil Hall's Travels in North America in 1 8 27 
 and 1828, treating in vol. i of this region; Anne Royall's 
 Black Book, vol. i; John Fowler's Journal of a Tour in the 
 State of New York in I 830-1 83 I. We come now to a set 
 of travels which tell of the western lakes in particular and give a 
 picture of their towns: A Winter in the West, by a New 
 Yorker (2 vols.), 1835; Life on the Lakes, telling of a Lake 
 Superior trip in 1836 by the author of "Legends of a Log 
 Cabin"; Bela Hubbard's Memorials of Half a Century, also 
 of a voyage to Lake Superior. J. L. Peyton's Over the Alle- 
 ghanies and Across the Prairies, 1 848, and Captain Mac- 
 kinnon's Atlantic and Trans-Atlantic Sketches, i, 141-233, 
 give vivid pictures of lake travel. Lillian Foster was in Chicago 
 in I 860, and tells in Wayside Glimpses, pp. 200-224, ^^^ impres- 
 sions of Douglas and the political situation. Margaret Fuller 
 spent a Summer on the Lakes m I 843 ; Charles Dickens went 
 to Niagara, which he describes in his American Notes, 1842, 
 
A Brief List of Books 391 
 
 and Harriet Martineau wrote a Retrospect of Western Travel 
 (3 vols.), 1838, in which she devotes seventy pages of the first 
 volume to a trip from Albany to Niagara. Two accounts of 
 travel in Minnesota are E. S. Seymour's Sketches of Minnesota, 
 1850, and C. C. Andrews' Minnesota and Dacotah, 1857. 
 
 Gazetteers and Guides (arranged alphabetically). S. R. 
 Brown's The Western Gazetteer, 1 817; E. Dana's Description 
 of the Bounty Lands of Illinois in 1 8 19, and Geographical 
 Sketches on the Western Country, 1819; William Darby's Emi- 
 grants' Guide to the Western and Southwestern States and Ter- 
 ritories, 1818; G. M. Davison's The Fashionable T'owr, with 
 several successive editions under the title. The Traveller's Guide, 
 1 830-1 840; J. Disturnell's The Western Traveller, 1844, and 
 A Trip through the Lakes of North America, 1857; T. 
 Dwight's The Northern Traveller; A. D. Jones' Illinois and 
 the West, 1838, which is especially good on pioneer conditions; 
 John Melish's Geographical Description of the United States, 
 Information and Advice to Emigrants, and Traveller s Direc- 
 tory, 1815-1826; S. A. Mitchell's Illinois in 1837; J. M. 
 Peck's Gazetteer of Illinois, Guide for Emigrants, and New 
 Guide for Emigrants to the West, 1831-1848; J. C. Smith's 
 The Western Tourist, 1 840, and Steele's Western Guide-Books, 
 1 8 30-1 840; H. SpoiFord's Pocket Guide of the State of New 
 York, I 824 ; H. S. Tanner's The American Traveller (8th ed., 
 1842); and George Temple's The American Tourist's Pocket 
 Companion, I 8 12. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Adrian, 276, 285. 
 
 Albany, 91, 102, 22S, 232, 237, 242, 
 
 248, 252, 256, 259. 
 Allouez, Father Claude, 41 ; address 
 
 to Indians, 45-47. 
 American Fur Company, 338. 
 Anderson, Robert, 207. 
 Andre, Father Louis, 41. 
 Astor, John Jacob, 338, 357. 
 
 Barclay, Commodore, in command 
 of British fleet on Lake Erie, 182, 
 183; defeated by Perry, 184-187. 
 
 Battles, Niagara, 1 08-1 11; Bloody 
 Rim, 129, 130; Fallen Timbers, 
 160, 161; Tippecanoe, 166; 
 River Raisin, 180, i8i; Lalie 
 Erie, 183-187; The Thames, 188, 
 189; Chippewa Creek, 189; 
 Lundy's Lane, 189; Wisconsin 
 Heights, 210, 211; Bad Axe, 
 211. 
 
 BeaU, John Yates, Confederate 
 agent on the lakes, 322-326, 32S, 
 
 329- 
 
 BibUography, 385-391. 
 
 Black Hawk, appearance and early 
 career, 201—203; ^^ war, 205- 
 212; his eastern trip, 212-214. 
 
 Black Rock, 181, 182, 254. 
 
 Boone, Daniel, at Detroit, 152. 
 
 Brebeuf, Father Jean, Jesuit mis- 
 sionary to Hurons, 25-37 ; founder 
 of mission, 25; life among In- 
 dians, 25-33; killed by Iroquois, 
 
 37- 
 
 Brock, Gen. Isaac, captures De- 
 troit for British, 168-172. 
 
 Brule, Etienne, first white man to 
 see Lake Huron, 10, 14. 
 
 Buffalo, founded, 220, 221; in 1811, 
 246, 247; terminus of Erie Canal, 
 
 254-256, 260; in 1840, 266-269; 
 lumber market, 345, 346; first 
 steamboat launched at, 360; 
 grain elevators, 370; rapid 
 growth, 374, 375. 
 Buffalo roads, 229, 230. 
 
 Cadillac, La Mothe, founder of De- 
 troit, 88-98; character, 88; at 
 Mackinac, 88; at Detroit, 89- 
 98. 
 
 Cadillac, Madame, 96. 
 
 Campbell, Capt., 124, 126. 
 
 Camp Douglas, 319-322, 326. 
 
 Canals, Welland, 5, 283 ; Henne- 
 pin, 6; Rock River, 224; Penn- 
 sylvania and Erie, 272, 284; Ohio 
 and Erie, 273, 283, 284; Wabash 
 and Erie, 276, 284; Miami, 2S4; 
 Erie, see under Erie; "Soo," see 
 under Sault Ste. Marie. 
 
 Cass, Lewis, in War of 1812, 170; 
 governor of Michigan territory, 
 191-200; early life, 192; manage- 
 ment of the territory, 193-196; 
 dealings with Indians, 196-200; 
 at Duluth, 200, 224, 225. 
 
 Champlain, Samuel de, on Lake 
 Huron, 10, 14; early career, 12, 
 13; among the Hurons, 14-23; 
 his writings, 23, 24. 
 
 Chicago, military post, 166; mas- 
 sacre at, 172-177; under Gov- 
 ernor Cass, 193, 198, 200; town 
 begun, 222, 223; in 1840, 266, 
 275-279; Lincoln and Douglas 
 in, 299-316; in Civil War, 318- 
 322, 327-329; first steamboat 
 to, 361 ; grain elevators, 369, 370; 
 the modern city, 379-383; see 
 also Chicago River, and Fort 
 Dearborn. 
 
 393 
 
394 
 
 Index 
 
 Chicago University, 319, 381. 
 
 Cleveland, founded, 164, 165, 219, 
 220; in 1840, 272, 273; coming 
 of the first train, 289-291; com- 
 merce, 291, 350, 351; shipyards, 
 372, 373; rapid growth, 374, 375, 
 377, 378. 
 
 Cleveland, Moses, 164, 219. 
 
 Clinton, De Witt, and the Erie 
 Canal, 237, 238, 251, 254-260. 
 
 Confederate operations on the lakes, 
 
 317-3^9- 
 Connecticut, land cession, 219. 
 Conventions, National Republican 
 
 of i860, 300, 311-314; National 
 
 Democratic of 1864, 321, 322. 
 Coureurs de bois, 41, 47, 107, 333, 
 
 334- 
 
 Dablon, Father Claude, 41. 
 
 Dalyell, Capt., at siege of Detroit, 
 128, 129; killed, 130. 
 
 Davis, Jefferson, in Black Hawk 
 War, 207 ; sends commissioners 
 to Canada, 317. 
 
 Davison, Gideon, his Travellers' 
 Guides, 267-269. 
 
 Denonville, governor of New 
 France, 87, 104. 
 
 Detroit, founded by French, 87-100 ; 
 taken by British, 116; blockaded 
 by Pontiac, 118-134; in 1776, 
 ^5i~i53J ^^ American post, 154, 
 163, 164; taken by British, 166- 
 172; under Gov. Cass, 194, 195; 
 fire at, 221; in 1840, 274, 275; 
 terminus of Michigan Central, 
 288; rapid growth, 374, 375. 
 
 Detroit River, visited by La Salle, 
 62, 63; first recorded passage 
 of, 63; importance of, 88-91; 
 beauty of, 91-93; rnilitary opera- 
 tions on, 125-131, 167-170, 187, 
 190, 323, 325; commerce of, 
 
 371-373- 
 Douglas, Stephen A., 299-316; 
 early career, 302-306; debates 
 with Lincoln, 300, 309-311; 
 Senator, 305, 311, 314, 315; sup- 
 
 porter of Lincoln, 314-316; 
 
 death, 316. 
 Druilletes, Gabriel, 41. 
 Du Luth, Daniel G., 224, 334, 
 
 335- 
 Duluth, Indian trading station, 224, 
 
 225, 334; becomes a town, 225; 
 
 commerce of, 344, 354, 369. 
 Dunkirk, railroad celebration at, 
 
 291-293. 
 
 Erie, Lake, discovered and explored, 
 61, 63; forts on, 104, 108, 109, 
 118, 125, 164; in War of 1812, 
 165-168, 179-190; settlements 
 on, 219, 220; roads, canals, and 
 railroads to, 232-241, 242, 251- 
 265, 283-297 ; travel on, 268-' 
 274; in Civil War, 322-326; 
 commerce of, 343, 345, 360. 
 
 Erie, Penn., in 1840, 268, 272; rail- 
 road war, 294-298; underground 
 railroad station, 302 ; see also 
 Presque Isle under Forts. 
 
 Erie Canal, 5, 195, 221, 226, 237, 
 238, 251-265; building of, 251- 
 254; ceremony of opening, 254- 
 260; travel on, 261-263; ^'^- 
 larged, 263-265; 271, 283. 
 
 Forts, Frontenac, 52, 61, 105, 218; 
 Duquesne, 104; Le Bceuf, 104, 
 106, 109; Sandusky, 104, 125, 
 219; Venango, 104, 106, 291; 
 Presque Isle, 104, 106, 109, 118, 
 125, 164, 219; Washington, 158; 
 Recovery, 158; Defiance, 159; 
 Harrison, 166; Dearborn, 166, 
 172-177; Wayne, i66, 174, 276; 
 Maiden, 167-170, 180, 183, 187, 
 188; WiUiam, 338-341. 
 
 Franklin, Benjamin, makes Great 
 Lakes U.S. boundary, 347. 
 
 Frenchtown, HuU at, 167; Ameri- 
 can defeat at, 179-181. 
 
 Frontenac, governor of New France, 
 so, 59, 67; recalled, 73; returns, 
 87; his plan to occupy Great 
 Lakes, 87, 88; death, 87. 
 
Index 
 
 395 
 
 Fuller, Margaret, trip to the lakes, 
 278-2S2. 
 
 Fur trade, carried on by French and 
 English, 39, 51, 52, 66-68, 88, 
 89, loi, 102, 135, 145; leading 
 interest on the lakes, 330-342 ; 
 under the French, 331-33S; 
 under the British, 335-342 ; under 
 the Americans, 155, 165, 337, 338, 
 341, 347- 
 
 Genesee Turnpike, 233. 
 
 Georgian Bay, 10, 12, 14, 25, 28, 
 148, 2l8. 
 
 Gladwin, Major, in command at 
 Detroit, 119; blockaded by Pon- 
 tiac, ri9-i33; saves Detroit, r33. 
 
 Grain, handled by lake ports, 6, 
 
 369. 37°- 
 Greeley, Horace, 297. 
 Green Bay, 76, 333, 337. 
 Griffon, see under Ships. 
 Groseillers, 39. 
 
 Hamilton, Gen., at Detroit, 151- 
 153; captured by Clark, 153. 
 
 Harmar, Gen., unsuccessful ex- 
 pedition against Indians, 156, 
 161, 174. 
 
 Harriott, John, journey to Lake 
 Erie, 242-246. 
 
 Harrison, Gen. W. H., at Tippe- 
 canoe, 166; Lake Erie expedi- 
 tion, 179, 180; battle of the 
 Thames, 187-189. 
 
 Harvey, C. T., designer and builder 
 of "Soo" Canal, 362-364. 
 
 Hawley, Jesse, and Erie Canal, 237. 
 
 Heald, Capt,, in command at Fort 
 Dearborn, 172-177; escapes mas- 
 sacre, 176, 177. 
 
 Hennepin, Father Louis, compan- 
 ion of La Salle, 51 ; writes of 
 Niagara, ^2, 53; and of the 
 voyage, 58, 59; names Lake St. 
 Clair, 6^. 
 
 Henry, Alexander, adventures at 
 Mackinac, 135-150; copper min- 
 ing, 347- 
 
 Hines, Capt., Confederate agent, 
 321, 322. 
 
 Hotels, American, and Franklin, 
 in Cleveland, 273; Lake House, 
 in Chicago, 277, 278; Trcmont 
 House, in Chicago, 307, 308, 
 314, 316. 
 
 Hull, Gen,, in War of 1812, 166- 
 172; surrenders Detroit, 171. 
 
 Huron, Lake, discovered and ex- 
 plored, 10-14, 25-28, 37, 65, 71, 
 88, 150, 21S; travel on, 282; 
 commerce of, 336, 337, 360, 372. 
 
 Illinois, part of Northwest Territory, 
 155; becomes a state, 193; Black 
 Hawk War in, 201-214; in 1840, 
 266, 267, 269, 270; in 1850-1860, 
 299, 300, 302, 304, 305 ; in Civil 
 War, 318. 
 
 Indiana, part of Northwest Terri- 
 tory, 155, 165; becomes a terri- 
 tory, 191; becomes a state, 193; 
 in 1840, 266, 267; in CivU War, 
 318. 
 
 Indian treaties, with La Salle, 56; 
 with La Barre, 76-S3; with Le 
 Moyne, 102; with Johnson, 131- 
 i33i i45i 149; with Wayne 
 (Treaty of Greenville), 162, 164, 
 219, 222 ; with Cass, 19S-200, 
 224, 225; with U. S. government, 
 202. 
 
 Indian tribes, Iroquois or Five Na- 
 tions, location and organization, 
 II, 12, 232; their relations to the 
 French, 17-22, 36-38, 54, 60, 
 74-84; at Niagara, 102, 217; 
 Hurons^ location, 12-16; at war 
 with Iroquois, 16-23, 3^. 37! 
 Algonquins, 12, 114; Neutral 
 Nation, ^^ ; Ojibways, 114; 
 Ottawas, 114, 120, 144, 145; 
 Illinois, 114, 134; Chippewas, 
 138-145; Sattk and Fox, 202- 
 214. For Mohawks, Oneidas, 
 Onondagas, Cayugas, Senecas, 
 see under Iroquois. 
 
 Iroquois Trail, 231, 232, 251. 
 
396 
 
 Index 
 
 Jesuits, missions to Hurons, 25-3S; 
 to Iroquois, 38; at Sault Ste. 
 Marie, 34, 35, 39; at La Pointe, 
 39, 41 ; at Manitoulin Island, 41. 
 
 Jogues, Father Isaac, Jesuit mis- 
 sionary, among Hurons, 32, 34; 
 visits and names Sault Ste. Marie, 
 35; captured and killed by 
 Iroquois, 35, 36. 
 
 Johnson, Sir William, captures 
 Niagara, 106-111; Indian con- 
 ferences, 131, 132, 133, 146-149. 
 
 Johnston, Albert, 207. 
 
 Joncaire, loi, 108. 
 
 La Barre, Gen. Le Febvre de, 73- 
 84; expedition against Iroquois, 
 74-84. 
 
 La Motte, companion of La Salle, 
 53-56. 
 
 La Pointe, 39, 4r. 
 
 La Salle, Robert Cavalier, Sieur 
 de, early career, 49-51; builds 
 the Griffon, 56-60; on Lakes 
 Erie, Huron, and Michigan, 61- 
 
 71- 
 Le Caron, Father Joseph, 10, r5, 16. 
 Le Moyne, Charles (ist), 103. 
 Le Moyne, Charles (2d), with La 
 
 Barre, 75, 80, 82, 104. 
 Le Moyne, Charles (3d), builds 
 
 Fort Niagara, ro2-io4. 
 Le Moyne, Father, 38. 
 Lewiston, 54, 102, 232, 238. 
 Lincoln, Abraham, in Black Hawk 
 
 War, 206 ; debates with Douglas, 
 
 300, 302, 308-311; nominated 
 
 for presidency, 311-314. 
 Lockport, 253, 256, 257, 264. 
 Logan, Gen. John A., 3, 316. 
 Lumber, forest distribution, 342, 
 
 343; industry, 343-34?- 
 
 McDougall, Lieut., at Detroit, r24, 
 126. 
 
 Mackinac (called Michilimackinac, 
 Mackinaw), trading post, 66, 67, 
 88, 218, 223, 224, 281; North- 
 west Fur Company and Ameri- 
 
 can Fur Company station, 335- 
 338, 357; lumber region, 344; fort 
 at, 118, 135-150, 166, 168, 169, 
 177, 224, 268. 
 
 Manitoulin Island, 41, 281. 
 
 Marquette, 42, 218. 
 
 Massachusetts land cession, 220. 
 
 Melish, John, journey in western 
 New York, 246-248. 
 
 Menard, Father, on Lake Superior, 
 
 39- 
 
 Michigan, part of Northwest Terri- 
 tory, 155; a separate territory 
 under Cass, r9i-i96; becomes a 
 state, 196; in 1840, 266, 267; 
 railroads, 284-288; lumber trade, 
 343-345; mineral wealth, 347- 
 35t- 
 
 Michigan, Lake, discovered and 
 explored, 35, 39, 40, 49, 67-71; 
 forts on, 70, 118, 119, 166, 172- 
 178; settlement on, 198, 200, 222, 
 223; travel on, 279-281; com- 
 merce of, 337, 357, 361, 369, 370. 
 
 Michigan City, in 1840, 266, 276; 
 underground railroad station, 302. 
 
 Milwaukee, founded, 223, 224; in 
 1840, 266, 279, 280; fur trade of, 
 337; port for grain, 369; rapid 
 growth, 374, 375. 
 
 Minerals, copper, 4, 8, 347, 348; 
 iron, 4, 8, 348-354, 367-369; 
 lead, 201, 202. 
 
 Minnesota, lumber trade, 343, 344, 
 346; mineral wealth, 352-354. 
 
 New York, home of Iroquois tribes, 
 II, 12; Indian trails, 231, 232; 
 turnpikes, 232-236, 242-250; 
 canals, 237, 250-265; railroads, 
 238-241, 291-298. 
 
 Niagara, discovered, 52-61 ; held 
 by French, 101-105; taken by 
 English, 105-112; Indian con- 
 vention at, 132, 149; in War of 
 1812, 181, 182, 189. 
 
 Niagara Falls, location, 5 ; seen by 
 Hennepin, 52, 53 ; description of, 
 53; visited, 246. 
 
Index 
 
 397 
 
 Niagara, Fort, built, 101-105; cap- 
 tured by Bntisli, 105-113; centre 
 of British influence, 153. 
 
 Niagara River, key to the lakes, 54- 
 60; in War of 1812, 181, 182, 189. 
 
 Nicolet, 35, 331. 
 
 Nipissing, Lake, 13, 27, 34, 218. 
 
 Northwestern Fur Company, 224, 
 335. 338-341- 
 
 Ohio, part of Northwest Territory, 
 155; becomes a state, 191; in 
 1840, 265, 267; canals, 283, 284; 
 railroads, 284-291 ; underground 
 railroad, 301, 302; in Civil War, 
 318. 
 
 Onondaga, see Syracuse. 
 
 Ontario, Lake, discovered and ex- 
 plored, 17, 22, 52, 56, 7s; forts 
 on, 52, 61, 100— 112, 1S9, 218; 
 travel on, 242 ; commerce of, 336. 
 
 Ordinance of 1787, 155, 191. 
 
 Oswego, trading post, 102, 105, 
 333; Johnson at, 132, 133; fort, 
 219; village, 220, 221. 
 
 Pennsylvania, canals, 284; rail- 
 roads, 291-297; 299, 302, 368. 
 
 Perrot, Nicholas, 201. 
 
 Perry, Oliver Hazard, early life, 
 181; in charge of Lake Erie 
 fleet, 181-182; battle of Lake 
 Erie, 183-187, 190. 
 
 Pontiac, meets Rogers, 113; char- 
 acter and early career, 113-116; 
 blockades Detroit, 1 19-131 ; later 
 life and death, 133. 
 
 Pouchot, Capt., French officer at 
 Niagara, 105; besieged by Eng- 
 Ush, 106-111; surrenders, in. 
 
 Prideau.x, Gen., killed at Niagara, 
 105, 106. 
 
 Proctor, Gen. Henry, at Maiden, 
 180, 187; defeated, 188, 189. 
 
 Radisson, 39. 
 
 Railroads, Mohawk and Hudson, 
 238, 240; New York Central, 
 241, 291, 298; Michigan Central, 
 
 284, 287, 288; Kalamazoo and 
 Erie, 285, 286; Michigan South- 
 ern, 285 ; Cleveland, Columbus, 
 and Cincinnati, 288-291 ; New 
 York and Erie, 291-298; Illi- 
 nois Central, 305, 306; Iron 
 Mountain Road, 351; see also 
 under Roads. 
 Rivers, Chicago, 70, 218, 222; 
 Cuyahoga, 113, 219; Detroit, see 
 under Detroit River; Fo.x- Wis- 
 consin, 98, 218; Genesee, 56, 
 220, 233, 235, 246, 252, 257; 
 IlUnois, 66, 71, 106; Maumee, 
 T-3i, 159. 178, 179, 218, 276, 284; 
 Milwaukee, 223; Mississippi, 
 
 12, 49, 104, 154, iss, 201-203, 
 211, 21S, 225, 299; Mohawk, 232, 
 237, 246, 252, 259, 264; Niagara, 
 see under Niagara River; Ohio, 
 49, 104, 154, 158, 165, 228, 284, 
 302; Oswego, 102; Ottawa, 10, 
 
 13, 27, 51, 90, 154, 218; Raisin, 
 1 79-181; Rock, 201-208, 212; 
 Sandusky, 183, 187; St. Croix, 
 225, 344; St. Joseph's, 70, 119, 
 161, 218, 275; St. Lawrence, 
 12, 13, 74, 84, 96, 104, 147, 236; 
 Thames, 188-190; Wabash, 177, 
 21S; Wisconsin, 201, 202, 210, 
 211, 212. 
 
 Roads, buffalo roads, 229, 230; 
 Indian trails, 230-232; turn- 
 pikes, 232-236, 247-250; log- 
 roads, 243; railroads, 238-241, 
 283-298, 305, 344, 351. 353- 
 
 Rochester, founded, 220; turnpike 
 to, 235, 236; on Erie Canal, 252; 
 canal celebration at, 257, 258. 
 
 Rochester, Nathaniel, 220, 235. 
 
 Rogers, Major Robert, meets Pon- 
 tiac, 113; at Detroit, 116, 128, 
 129. 
 
 Rome, 232, 258, 259. 
 
 Saginaw, 198, 344. 
 
 St. Clair, Gen., his defeat, 156-159, 
 
 174. 
 St. Clair, Lake, named, 63, 64. 
 
39^ 
 
 Index 
 
 Saint Lusson, Daumont de, his cere- 
 mony at Sault Ste. Marie, 40-48. 
 
 Sandusky, in 1840, 268, 272, 273; 
 Underground Railroad station, 
 302; in Civil War, 322-325, 328; 
 see also under Forts. 
 
 Sandwicli, American army at, 168, 
 169; evacuated by British, 187, 
 188. 
 
 Sault Ste. Marie, discovered, 34, 35, 
 39; Saint Lusson at, 39-48; 
 Henry at, 137, 145-148; Cass at, 
 199; Margaret Fuller at, 282; 
 "Soo" Canal built, 7, 8, 351, 
 362-365 ; commerce of, 8, 364, 372. 
 
 Schenectady, 232, 238, 240, 268. 
 
 Scott, Gen. Winfield, in Black Hawk 
 War, 207, 212. 
 
 Ships, kinds of, bateau, 127, 129, 
 358, 359; canal boat, 255-259, 
 261-264; canoe, 356-359; pi- 
 rogue, 359; saiUng vessel, 359, 
 360, 365; steamboats, 268, 
 269, 279, 360-362, 371; steel 
 freighters, 365-370; whalebacks, 
 370, 371; ice-breakers, 371, 372; 
 Griffon, first sailing vessel on the 
 lakes, 51-69; built by La Salle, 
 51-60; on the lakes, 61-68; lost, 
 69, 359, 373; Beaver, at Detroit, 
 120, 127, 359; Gladwin, at De- 
 troit, 120, 126, 127, 130, 359; 
 ships in battle of Lake Erie, 183- 
 187; on Erie Canal, 255-259; in 
 Civil War, 322-326, 329; Walk-in- 
 the-Water, first steamboat on the 
 lakes, 360, 361, 373. 
 
 Sons of Liberty, 318-322, 328. 
 
 Stage wagons, 234, 236, 243-245, 
 247, 248. 
 
 Superior, Indian trading station, 
 224, 225; became a town, 225; 
 commerce of, 344, 369. 
 
 Superior, Lake, discovered and ex- 
 plored, 39, 198-200, 224; settle- 
 ment on, 225; commerce of, 
 336-341, 344, 347-354, 357, 360- 
 37°- 
 
 Syracuse (Onondaga), 232, 252, 264. 
 
 Taylor, Col. Zachary, 207. 
 
 Tecumseh, leads Indian uprising, 
 165, 166; with the British, 169, 
 170, 187-189; killed, 189. 
 
 Toledo, in 1840, 266, 276; terminus 
 of canal and railroad, 284, 287; 
 rapid growth, 375, 383. 
 
 Tolls, table of, 235, 236. 
 
 Tonty, companion of La Salle, 56, 
 70. 
 
 Tonty, Madame, 96. 
 
 Toronto, 148, 219. 
 
 Tower, Charlemagne, opens iron 
 mines, 352, 354. 
 
 Travel, bibliography, 389-391 ; to 
 Lake Erie, in 1796, 242-246; in 
 1811, 246-250; on Erie Canal, 
 261-263 ; on the Great Lakes in 
 1840, 266-282. 
 
 Travellers, John Harriott, 242- 
 246; John Melish, 246-248; an 
 Englishwoman, 248, 249 ; Anne 
 Royall, 261-263; Margaret Ful- 
 ler, 278-282. 
 
 Treaties, treaty of Paris, 1782, 153, 
 154; Jay's treaty, 1796, 163; 
 treaty of Ghent, 1814, 190; see 
 also Indian treaties. 
 
 Turnpikes, see under Roads. 
 
 Two Harbors, 353, 354. 
 
 Underground Railroad, 301, 302. 
 Utica (Fort Schuyler), 232, 233, 238, 
 245, 248, 260, 262. 
 
 Walk-in-the-Waler, see under Ships. 
 
 Wayne, Anthony, Indian campaign, 
 156-164; makes treaty of Green- 
 ville, 162; death, 164. 
 
 Wells, William, at Fort Dearborn 
 massacre, 174-177. 
 
 Wigwam, Republican, 311-315. 
 
 Wisconsin, part of Northwest 
 Territory, 155; called Huron 
 district, 193; Black Hawk 
 War in, 201, 210-212; in 1840, 
 266, 267; lumber trade, 343- 
 346; mineral wealth, 351, 352, 
 354- 
 
Stories from American History 
 
 Yankee Ships and Yankee Sailors 
 
 By JAMES BARNES 
 
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 the pirate whose greed of booty was for private gain. Mr. Stockton 
 has told wild stories of picturesque figures among both types of 
 leaders, and his characteristic quaint turns of humor set them off 
 entertainingly. Illustrated by G. Varian and B. W. Clinedinst. 
 
 Cloth, $1.50 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 64-66 FIFTH AVENTTE, NEW TOBK 
 
Abraham Lincoln 
 
 The Boy and the Man 
 
 By JAMES MORGAN 
 
 With Many Interesting Portraits and Other Illustrations , many 
 of them secured for the hook from Private Collections 
 
 Cloth, $1.50 
 
 You may already know the great events of Lincoln's life, but you will 
 still find this simple, clear, straightforward story of the early hard 
 work, the slow study for the practice of law, the single-minded stand 
 "for the Union," and the brave, quiet facing of every difficulty, the 
 most fascinating record of any human life which you have known. 
 
 The Chicago Tribune says of it editorially : " It tells the life story 
 well. It is interesting. It is well written. It gives the significant 
 facts one wants to know." 
 
 The Seven Ages of Washington 
 
 By OWEN WISTER 
 
 Attractively hound, illustrated in photogravure, $2.00 net 
 
 The JVew York Tribmie says of it : " ' The Seven Ages of Washing- 
 ton ' . . . gives a remarkable interpretation of its subject. ... It is 
 plain that the author has been moved to the depths of him by his 
 hero's worth, finding in the traditionally 'cold' figure of Washington 
 a type to touch the emotions as vividly as Napoleon touches them in 
 even his most dramatic moments. He passes on his impression m a 
 few chapters which gather up everyday traits as they come out in 
 letters and other records. The salient events in Washington's career, 
 military and political, are indicated rather than dwelt upon. The 
 object of interest is always his character; the things placed in the 
 foreground are the episodes, great or small, which show us that char- 
 acter in action or point to the sources of its development. . . . The 
 background, like the portrait, is handled with perfect discretion. 
 The reader who is searching for an authoritative biography of Wash- 
 ington, brief, and made humanly interesting from the first page to the 
 last, will find it here." 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 
 
ifiini!