F 127 .G3S3 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS D00DS1ED44S ^ "^^ ^ ^^ *o_ -'?«*T'' .^ AKE GEORGE IN HISTORY. By Elizabeth Egglestoe See'jye, Author of, "The Story of Washington," "The Story of Columbus," "The Life of Tecumseh," "The Life of Pocahontas," "The Life of Brant and Red Jacket," "The Life of Montezuma," &c., &c. TOGETHER WITH A Historical Map of the Lake Qeorge Region AND A GUIDE TO BATTLEFIELDS AND OTHER POINTS OF INTEREST IN THE EASTERN PART OF THE ADIRONDACK MOUNTAINS. PRICE, TEN CENTS. Siished by ELWYN SEELYE, Lake George, N. Y. ■^YRIGHTED 1896 BY THE AUTHOR. AVED! -^.A. We have saved the people who deal with us man}/ a dollar, and the goods are well known to be the best obtainable. LOST Anyone who has not dealt with us has lost money. Get our price list and compare prices with other deal- ers.' We don't quote everything, but enough to give you an idea. Other things in the store in proportion- Cheapest Place to Trade in Warren County! Mail oiders will receive prompt attention. ■'^> Ames (^ Baldwai^ chem:stsand druggists, 150 GLEh' STREET, - - - GLEtr iil; ^ii\\\\0 ^/4 ^//\'\ ^ ^ ^ IfeU CntK 1^ ^/it\f .sxx^WV^\->^-^'^-^^^'^'''''^^ ^'^pt'vy,^ "..y^ Comiteots, A GREAT WATER PATHWAY THE MAKING OF LAKE GEORGE THE INDIANS OF LAKE GEORGE THE DISCOVERY OF LAKE GEORGE THE NAMING OF LAKE GEORGE LAKE GEORGE A WARPATH A CANOE EXPEDITION. THE PATH OF PEACE MESSENGERS ENGLISH ADVANCE TO LAKE GEORGE THE FRENCH AT TICONDEROGA. THE MARCH ON FORT EDWARD UP THE ROAD TO LAKE GEORGE A BLOODY MORNING SCOUT BATTLE OF LAKE GEORGE BLOODY POND FIGHT. BARON DIESKAU'S DANGER HOLDING LAKE GEORGE SCOUTING ON LAKE GEORGE A WINTER SIEGE OF FT. WM. HENRY MONTCALM ON LAKE GEORGE SIEGE O - FORT WILLIAM HENRY FALL OF FORT WiLLiAM HENRY MASSACRE OF LAKE GEORGE. BATTLE OF ROGERS' ROCK. ROGERS' SLIDE. BATTLE OF TICONDEROGA PUTNAM'S ADVENTURE. LAST SCENES OF THE FRENCH WAR ABOUT LAKE GEORGE. ETHAN ALLEN AT TICONDEROGA BEN FRANKLIN ON LAKE GEORGE BATTLE OF DIAMOND ISLAND EARLY VISITORS AT LAKE GEORGE POINTS OF HISTORIC INTEREST ON AND ABOUT LAKE GEORGE A GREAT WATER PATHWAY. s-^^'-^^ P l^fe' li&s:^ ^^^^ George and Lake Champlain ^^^^^U Wi 3fc-"L are two great links between " /^^/m W\ //W^ ^^^ waters of the St. Lawrence •^^rz:^'~Mir-4^^^ system and the Hudson Eiver. ^^^^^^i^^^^t^^"!^ Before the invention of the ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ railway nothing could be more important than such a water route. Until the intermin- able forests had been cleared and roads built there was no other means of traversing the continent, and even then the waterways remained the only practicable route for moving cannon, heavy stores and merchan- dise, while man himself could travel much more easily, cheaply and swiftly by water. Here then for untold ages Indian war parties came and went. At this gateway between two lands English and French struggled for the possession of a continent. Here England descended upon her rebel- lious colonies and strove to cut them jn twain ; and the sturdy northern farmers first showed their power to resist the veteran troops of the Old World. Before the building of the Champlain canal an infant trade flowed through these waters, and travel- ers sought this route between the United States and Canada. No part of the country is richer in histori- cal interest; no other American waters have seen so 4 many armies pass up and down them, gay with the brilliant costumes of an old world and a past age. THE MAKING OF LAKE GEORGE. Lake George lies at the eastern edge of the Adiron- dack mountain system, which is one of the oldest on our continent, being formed of archaic rock which rose above the sea long before the most of North America ceased to be ocean floor. The rains and frosts of immensely long ages have very much reduced the height of these mountains and worn them down to their present rounded outlines. It is a curious fact that Lake George, the southern end of which is almost enclosed in a loop of the Hud- son, should empty its waters into the St, Lawrence. Dr. G. Frederick Wright has recently discovered that before the Glacial Age Lake George did not exist. The original watershed of the St. Lawrence and the Hud- son rivers he finds to lie across the Narrows of Lake George ; and here two streams took their rise, one of which ran northward to Lake Champlain and the other southward through Dunham's bay to the Hud- son. During the Glacial Age tlie face of this country w^as covered with a slowly moving sheet of ice to the height of some hundreds of feet, which carved and shaped the bed of Lake George, and deposited as it melted, great quantities of sand and gravel, or clay, both to the north of Baldwin, where one stream had formerly found its way into Lake Champlain, and at the head of Dunham's Bay marsh, where the other had taken its course to join the Hudson. These hills of glacial drift dammed back the waters of the brawling iiiountiiiii brooks and made a lake of what was once a rugged valle\^ — a lake which found its only outlet across t)ie rocks at Ticonderoga. THE INDIANS OF LAKE GEORGE Lake George and Lake C'haniplain, forming a nat- ural warpath between tlie St. Lawrence and the Hud- son, the shores of Lake George were not a safe dwell- ing place for savages, and it is probable that for ages they had seen few inhabitants other than an occas- ional group of famished fishermen who sought such spots as Dunham's Bay Creek, in the spring, to spear the myriads of fish which flocked to its warmer waters during the spawning season. As far back as we know the Iroquois Indians held undisputed sway on these waters, and by means of them made their warlike descents upon the natives of Canada. Other savages only ventured on Lake George to steal into the countr}' of the Iroquoie to deal them some revengeful blow. The Iroquois, or Five Nations, were a confederacy of Indian peoples of one race, whose villages lay in a line across New York State from the mouth of the Mohawk River to Lake Erie. Unlike many other tribes, they fortified their towns with some skill and did not depend on the hunt alone for food, but raised corn, which they buried for use in the Winter. They were inveterate warriors and they had attained per- haps as great a degree of advancement as was possible ' on a continent where, north of Mexico, there were no spots in' which an infant civilization might de- 6 velop in comparative freedom from warlike inroad?^. Situated Avhere they commanded the Great Lakes, the St. Lawrence, Lake George and Lake Champlain, tlie Moliawk and the Hudson, a vast system oi natur- al water courses, the terror of their inroads was felt in the Ohio Valley, a-nong tlie Indians of Illinois, in Canada, and so far eastward that the n.atives of New England drew in close to the seaboard, shndderingly telling their white neighbors, "Mohog (Mohawk) all devil." THE DISCOVERY OF LAKE GEORGE. Ghamplain, the typical soldier-explorer of his day, a man whose gaze was fixed on the dawn of a great commercial age, seeking in the water courses of North America for a western route to China and the spice islands of the Orient, narrowly missed being the discoverer of Lake George. During the first year after the founding of (Quebec, having heard from the Indians of a lake of great size and beauty, in which were many fair islands, he joined a war party of Canadian Indians, bent on attacking the Mohawks in their home on the river of that name. To the Indians Lake George and Lake Champlain w^ere one, the latter "the door of the country," and the former, Andiatorocte, or, "there the water closes," an allusion to the falls in the stream of the outlet, around which they w^ere obliged to carry their canoes. It happened that the Canadian Indians were met on Lake Champlain by an Iroquois war party, where the battle took place instead of on the Mohawk, and Lake George remained unknown for thirty-two years longer, when it was the lot of Father Jogiies, a suffering and captive Jesuit,and tAvo young Frenchmen, his disciples, to be the first wliite men to look upon this beautiful sheet of water. Though the French excelled in the management of the Indians, it chanced that by their friendly alliance with the natives of Canada they found themselves embroiled with the most powerful savages on the continent. The Iroqu'ois, who had first fled in terror from the firearms of Champlain, had bided thei)' time, and when by their trade with the Dutch at Albany they had become possessed of a number of these desirable engines of war, the more western Iroquois fell with redoubled fury upon the Indians of Lake Huron, while the Mohawks glided up the Hud- son, Lake George and Lake Champlain to destroy the French border settlements, or lay in wait along the shores of the St. Lawrence to cut off French trade with the Huron s. On a morning in the August of 1642 such a war party ambushed twelve canoes making their way up the St. Lawrence, deeply laden with ammunition, guns, kettles, blankets, hatchets and such articles as Indians prized and bought with their beaver skins. There was 'a short fight, a flight and a pursuit. Twenty out of forty of the fugitives were captured, and among them was Father Jogues, a gentle Jesuit priest, fated to be the unwilling discoverer of Lake George. He had already been on many perilous missions to the Indians of Canada, living in their filthv, sinokv huts, trndging, hah'-starved and nearly frozen from village to village, hated and suspected as an "okie" who might bring disease and ruin with his mysteri- ous incantations, often threatened with the 'toma- hawk, yet patiently going where his superior ordered him. He was thirty-five years old, with slight and delicate features, and the tastes of a scholar, though he was an enduring runner and could outstrip most Indians in this exercise. Witlj him were two young lay assistants. Couture and Goupil, bound, like" him, to the country of the Hurons on painful missionarv labors. Jogues and Couture had at first made their escape to the rushes on the shore, but the priest had given liimself up when he saw Goupil a captive, and Cou- ture had done the same on discovering that the good father was in the hands of the savages, but not until he had first killed an Indian who snapped a gun at his breast. In revenge for this act the enraged Iroquois gnawed his fingers and pulled out his finger nails with their teeth ; and when Father Jogues fell upon his friend's neck, at the sight of his sufferings, they treated him to the same tortures. After knocking in the head a Huron Indian who was disabled from walking, but whom Father Jogues did not fail to baptize with his mangled hands, the triumphant Indians made their way up the Richelieu River and Lake Champlain, the prisoners suffering greatly by the way from heat, wounds and mosquit- oes. At the southern end of Lake Champlain they "terwards scorched their vvoundoi bodies « h fire atd a„„.ed themselve. .vheu then- PJ--^^^^^^ the cll^t-ing place ar-riconderoga and ea.t .ad eye. ^K^ ir^vpiv stretches of Lake George. "Vlu ,^r vCe ed.ptue lake, left then- bu..ts a, i JLlsLewhere near where Fort WiU,.n Henr, =^ftervvards stood, and took their way to then ^home „„ the Mohawk. Here the captives were carried . ;™ph fronr town to town running «- g-mlet^ a^ each fresh stopping Place- 'a narrow oadPa,a dise.r;X:^eaUe actoPted because tliev admired hiin for his courage ui "Stn. Ws man ai the moment of his cairture ; l>u o^Fatl^rJogues,who could not h""'. -1-;™^^ not eat the meat over which they had pertorn.ed a athen ceremony and who spent his fme ..-«o to secretlv baptize dying infants, or victims at the Itake tL"yhadnouse,andhis Ufe w.is in constant citn^;r Once he only escaped a summary death m r™ for the rumored loss of a -ar party by his abseiiL at a small body of water, probably Saratoga 10 Lake, where he and the haif-f ami shed Indian t'amily with which he hved sometimes subsisted on frogs and the entrails of fish. He was hurried back to the Mohawk, where his hfe was only saved by the safe arrival of the war party before him. At last after nearly a year of captivity he accom- panied the Indians on a trading expedition to Albany and here kind Dutch people persuaded him to escape, hiding him first in a vessel in the river and then in a garret and finally paying the Indians a large ransoin for him. THE NAMING OF LAKE GEORGE. Father Jogues made his vtay back to France, where he was caressed by gi'eat ladies of the court and the Queen kissed his mangled hands. But he returned to his labors in Canada, and in 1646 when it was rumored that the Iroquois washed to make peace with that country, he, who knew their language, was sent again into the land of the MohaAvks, with some presents for these people. Father Jogues accepted this dangerous errand as his duty, and accompanied by some Algonquin Indians, he ascended Lake Cham- plain once more and crossed the portage at Ticonder- oga to Lake George. There on a June day the party might be seen swiftly paddling up the lake, differing in no way from the war parties of past ages except for the refin- ed face of the black-robed priest and the lading of European goods wliich Jogues carried by way of a peace 11 offering. They reached the head of Lake George on the eve of the church hoHday known as Corpus Chrieti; and for this reason Father Jogues named the lovely lake of his discovery Lac St. Sacrement, or Lake of the Holy Sacrament; and this name it retain- ed for more than a hundred years, in the mouths of English as well as French. At the head of the lake Father Jogues and his companions Jeft their canoes and carrying their peace offerings on their backs to the Hudson they borrowed canoes at an Indian fish- ing village on this river and descejided it to the Mo- hawk towns. They found that there were two parties among the Mohawks, one of which wished for peace and one was determined on war. Jogues was soon in imminent danger from the latter party. Friendly Indians warned him to be gone. He had intended, if all were favorable, to found a mission among the Mohawks, and before his departure he left behind him a box containing some useful articles, whicli he might need if he returned for this purpose. As the Indians were curious he opened the box, and showing them what was in it, locked it again. He then ascended the Hudson and returned to Lake George, where he found his canoes, and so made his way by water back to Canada. Father Jogues had not been long returned when he was ordered by his superior to go back to the Mohawk country and found a mission, which was to be called "The Mission of the Martyrs." For the fourth and last time the Jesuit took his way through the waters of Lake George. The Indians had grown suspicious of him. They 12 fancied that the box which he had left among thein contained the pestilence or some other evil. A toma- hawk descended on his head one evening as he was entering an Indian wigwam, where he had been asked to a feast, and thus "the Mission of the Martyrs" was sealed with the blood of the gentle discoverer of Lake George. LAKE GEORGE A WARPATH. Long after its discovery by Father Jogues Lake George remained a war path, peopled only by fleets of canoes propelled by hideously painted savages^ stealing forth on their errand of death or hurrying homeward laden with spoils and trembling captives. During the seventeenth century the Iroquois Indians were possessed with a rage for conquest, exterminat- ing or pubduing all about them. It was no more than the old barbarous drama long enacted in the western world, a dreary tale of human suffering and woe, hastened on by the introduction of European firearms. New York in time became an English province and these fierce warriors were the only barrier be- tween the English and the French, who vied with each other in seeking their trade. North America had ceased to be the resort of romantic soldiers seeking the gateway to an Old World in the New, and had fallen to the lot of shrewd traders and hardy pioneers. Canada and New York both aspired to be the buyers and sellers of the rich furs of the North- west, and both claimed to own the Iroquois country from Lake George to Lake Erie. So long as colonies of both France and England 13 remained side by side in the New World every ambi- tious scheme of their princes in Europe was certain to throw these infant provinces into war,made doubly bitter by the savage allies which each sought to set upon the firesides of th« other. For seventy years there was strife between the French and English in America, broken only by short periods of peace. Again and agai :i was the valley of Lake George the theatie of this struggle between two great peoples for the possession of a continent. A CANOE EXPEDITION. In the summer of 1690 the English made an effort to control the great waterway into Canada, toiling up the Hudson in canoes which must be carried around the falls and rapids, or marching through the unbroken forests on the river bank, their stores loaded upon pack hordes, camping at South Bay on Lake Champlain only to fail in the end from the lack of provisions, lack of harmony and the small-pox. Both French and English were as yet too poor and feeble for grand mili- tary invasions and the inroad into Canada under the leadership of Peter Schuyler, the next year, was a more possible attempt. Schuyler, a mayor of Albany, much loved by the Indians, who called him "Quider," launched a fleet of canoes on Lake George in the summer of 1691, manned with about one hundred and twenty English and Dutchmen and one hundred and forty Mohawks and Mohegans. He ascended Lake George and Lake Champlain, slipped by the French fort of Chambly, on the Richelieu, marched through the woods to La Prairie, opposite Montreal, took twice 14 lii.s number of French by surprise, got the better of them in a short fight, cut down tlie green corn in the fields and retreated through the woods toward his caiioes. The Frencii, however, lay in ambush for him in the forest; Schuyler charged them, drove them from their hiding place, fought his way through their midst, turned around and drove them back some forty paces over the bodies of the slain and was, to tell the truth, heai-tily glad to see them retreat. He finally regained his canoes, having left his dead and his flags behind liim, but brought off hie wounded. A few days later found this gallant little band paddlirig up Lake George, having fought the first fight in this region, which savored but little of Indian methods of warfare ; and well it might since the braves on botii sides liad nearly all deserted at the outset of the struggle. THE PATH OF PEACE MESSENGERS- In 1698, plucky Peter Schuyler and the Dutch dominie at Albany paddled down Lake George on their way to Canada, with news of the Peace of Ryswick, which is the more memorable in this region because the Iroquois lords of these waters ceased from this time to be great conquerors. Deadly wars had much reduced their numbers, they had taken a fresh step in civilization and become shrewd traders, and they were so politic as to see that they gained in im- portance by joining neither the English nor the French, being courted by both, while they were not without a shrewd suspicion that these eager friends were each casting covetou s eyes on their lands. Thus IB it fell out that Lake George wa« at peace for the first time, in all probability, for untold ages. THE ENGL'SH ADVANCE TO LAKE GEORGE. The last French war was the only one of the four to begin in Amt^rica; the only one in which the dis- putes of the New World threw the Old into a struggle. English and French interests clashed at many points as well as in the region of Lake George, and it was in 11 race for the possession of the Ohio Valley that that war first broke out The English began the war with great vigor, encroaching. France was to be pushed back at four points, the mouth of the St. Lawrence, the Ohio valley, the Great Lakes, and at Lake Champlain. William Johnson, the Indian agent of the Mohawk, for the reason that he was the only man who could hope to engage the Iroquois Indians on the English side in the war, was chosen to lead an army against Crown Point. "My war kettle is on the fire," he said in a speech to the Indians, "My canoe is ready to launch, my gun is loaded, my sword is by my side and my axe is sharpened." Rethrew down the war belt and an Oneida chief took it up; but there had to be endless councils and much consumption of barbecued oxen and punch before some three hundred braves were aroused to the pitch of joining him afterwards at Lake St. Sac- rement, as Lake George was then called. In the summer of 1755, Johnson's soldiers gathered slowly at Albany from five different colonies, amid much confusion about provisions, each province at- 16 tempting to feed its own men. In July some of these men were sent up the Hudson to build forts at the various carrying places on the river and to cut a road from Albany to Lake George. It was not until the latter part of August that General Johnson with some three or four thousand men made his way up the rough hewn road, regaling his officers by the way with cold venison and lemon punch. Johnson was an ambitious young Irishman, of a good family, amassing a fortune out of trade and' wild lands, a favorite with men in power and much loved by the Indians by reason of his just dealing and his half-breed family. He lived in soma state on the Mohawk in a colonial mansion, swarmed over by his Indian neighbors, a strange mixture of the European gentleman, the Indian trader and the pioneer. Arrived at the lake, his first act was to re-name it after King George II, not only in honor of this dull monarch, but as he said to assert his undoubted dominion over these waters. He chose for his camp a spot near the beach at the head of the lake, with a marsh to the west of him and the higher ground on which Fort George afterwards stood on the east. He threw up no entrenchments for he expected soon to move on down the lake to the attack of Crown Point. He waited only on the stores, cannons and boats which were being slowly and laboriously hauled up from Fort Edward, on old-fashioned Dutch wagons, to be dumped on the beach ready for transportation. THE FRENCH AT TICONDEROGA. It happened when the grand English expedition against Fort DuQuesne on the Ohio had been defeated 17 by the Indian ambuscade in July that the French had learned from reading the captured papers of General Braddock that there were men mustering at Albany to attack Crown Feint. Immediately the Baron Dieskau,an experiimced German officer and a field mar- shal of France, having some regiments of finely trained regular soldier^^ at his command, was ordered to ascend Lake Champlain and oppose General John- son. It was expected in Canada that Dieskau would capture Fort Edward and perhaps even penetrate to Albany. He was a very active and courageous man whose motto was ''Boldness wins!" and he set out ful- ly determined to "mar the plans of the English." When he had reached Crown Point he did not wait there to be attacked but moved on and encamped at Ticonderoga, his forces being the first to occupy that important point which commanded botii the carrying place to Lake George and the soutliern arm of Lake Champlain, the only two ways of approaching Canada from the interior with cannon. Baron Dieskau had a number of Indians with him, and arrived at Ticonderoga, he urged them to go scouting that he might know where the English were and what were their numbers. But the Indians would do nothing but devour oxen, hogs and brandy, until the impatient Frenchman declared that it needed "the patience of an angel to get on with these devils." At length a few of them saw fit to venture near Fort Edward, and returned with one scalp and a prisoner. Captives played an important part in these wars around Lake George, for in such a wilderness they were the only means of gaining information, and for 18 this reason they were known to the Indians as? "living letters." This prisoner was threatened in the usually effective way with Indian tortures if he failed to tell the truth, but he riskefl hie own life by telling a falsehood, which he hoped would draw the French into a trap. The English army, he said, had retired to Albany and but five hundred men remained at Fort Edward, which was not in a state of defense.. THE MARCH UPON FORT EDWARD. Baron Dieskau thought this his opportunity to cap- ture Fort Edward. It was impossible to take all of the army at Ticonderoga with him through the woods to this place and he chose fifteen hundred men for the expedition, something over two hundred French regulars and nearly fourteen Indians and Canadians. Each man carried food for eight days upon his back and officers were allowed no other baggage than a spare shirt and pair of shoes, 4 blanket and a bear- skin each. Indians were ordered to take no scalps lintil the enemy was routed, since ten men might be killed while one was being scalped. The men ascend- ed in canoes that long arm of Lake Champlain run- ning parallel with Lake George. At its head they left their canoes and began their march through the woods, the Indians guiding them over fallen trees and rocks, through underbrush and swamps, toward the Hudson, the whole army of fifteen hundred men sometimes crossing a stream one at a time on a log. 19 / Johnson lay at Lake George in the confusion of a new camp, when his scouts brouaht him word that 20 a body of French and Indians were marching through the woods from South Bay to Fort Edward. Johnson knew that the works at Fort Edward, or Fort Lyman, as it was then called, were yet unfinished, the cannon mostly unmounted and the men carelessly encamped in various places outside the entrenchments. There was great danger that the French would capture this post, in which case Johnson's army would be cut off from supplies and obliged to capitulate. He hurried a messenger off to Fort Edward with a note to the commander, in which he advised him to bury his unmounted cannon and make a brave defense. Dieskau's Indians meanwhile were not pleased with the idea of attacking Fort Edward. These people never liked open fighting and they dreaded cannon. Instead of guiding Dieskau directly to Fort Edward they led him to the banks of the Hudson, between the present towns of Sandy Hill and (5lens Falls. Here the new road ran which had so recently been cut between Fort Edward and Lake George. The Indians lay in wait along its edge and captured the messenger that Johnson had sent to warn Fort Ed- ward of its danger. They also killed and captured some wagon drivers and put others to flight. From these prisoners Dieskau for the first time learned that there were several thousand men at Lake George. Still he would have marched on against Fort Edward but his Indians objected. There were cannon, they said, at Fort Edward and none at Lake George. A part of them were converted Mohawks from near Montreal and they did not like to go where they were 21 likely to kill their own kindred. They objected that Fort Edward was on English land ; they would not attack the English on their own ground, they said, but they were willing to fight them at Lake George, which was French soil. Fort Edward was French land also, said Dieskau, but the Indians denied this. Either the Baron must be content to beat an inglori- ous retreat or march against Johnson at Lake George. He chose to do the latter. He knew that Johnson's men were raw recruits, American farmers in home- si)un, most of whom had never seen fighting of any sort, and like all officers from the Old World, he be- lieved that such men were very poor soldiers, likely to run at the first onslaught, as was too often the case indeed. ' 'The more there are the more we shall kill, ' ' said he and he turned up the road to Lake George and marched that day as far as Glen Lake where he camped for the night on the evening of the seventh of Septem- ber, 1755. THE BLOODY MORNING SCOUT. An attack was the last thing expected at Lake George. The cannon lay on the beach, the camp was unfortified and the only anxiety of the officers was for Fort Edward. The soldiers were farmers,, mostly armed with their own hunting pieces, with hatchets stuck in their belts and powder horns slung over their shoulders, the officers were largely inexperi- enced in war; their general, Johnson, was a curious mixture of the country gentleman and trader; General Lyman had been a Yale tutor and later a lawyer; Colonel Titcomb had seen some service in the last war, as had Williams, a member of the General Court of Massachusetts, and deputy sheriff; vSeth Pomeroy was a gunsmith, while Putnam and Stark, future generals of the Revolution, had seen no more severe conflicts t lian an Indian skirmish and a hand-to-hand encounter with a she wolf in a cave. The officers held a council of war to decide what was to be done to save Fort Edward, the fall of which would cut them off from home and supplies. They little suspected that the enemy were about breaking camp only four miles distant, at Glen Lake. The chief of the Mohawks, King Hendrick, a fat old fellow who had long been a warm friend of the English, attended the council. It was proposed to send five hundred white men and gome Indians to the aid of Fort Edward and five hun- dred more to South Bay, on Lake Champlain, to cut off the French from their boats. But King Hendrick did not approve. He put several sticks together and broke them; he then put a number of sticks together and showed that they could not be broken. In this way he objected to the force being divided. The hint was taken and it was decided to send one thousand whites and two hundred Indians to the aid of Fort Edward. King Hendrick still objected that they were too few to fight and too many to be killed, but since they were going he climbed upon a gun car- riage and made a stirring speech to the Indian war- riors to get them to follow him to battle. It was eight o'clock on the morning of the eighth of September, 1755, that the twelve hundred men set forth on their march to the relief of Fort Edward. The party was commanded by Colonel 23 Ephraim Williams, a robust and heavy man who had done some Indian fighting in the last war, and who, though he was himself an uneducated man, loved learning so well that he had made a will at Albany leaving a legacy to found a school, which afterwards became Williams College. The Indians were led by King Hendrick, so old and fat that he ambled at their head on a pony. The men marched some dis- tance down the road and then halted for a portion of their forces to come up. So certain were the English that the enemy was no nearer than Fort Edward that no scouts were sent out and a straggler going on ahead during the halt was captured by the French, advancing from their camp of the night, and gave Dieskau information of the approaching body of men. The French general was on the full march to Lake George along the new road where it ran between the flanks of French and West Mountains. He instantly ordered his men to drop their knapsacks and lie flat on the ground, the Indians upon one side of the road, the Canadians upon the other and the French in the rear. He hoped that Williams would march directly into this ambuscade and so be enclosed as in a bag and destroyed as Braddock's army had been on the Ohio. And indeed the English and their Indians came on carelessly enough. They had begun to enter the trap when the Mohawks of the St. Lawrence, seeing their brothers of the Mohawk Valley in ad- vance, arose and fired into the air as a warning. The concealed Canadians and Frenchmen immediately opened fire. Many of the English party dropped under the deadly volley and their front ranks fell re was 24 back, "doubled up like a pack of cards." There was great confusion. King Hendrick was killed, ani Coonel U.lliams, running up a little eminence and c .mb,ng upon a boulder to encourage his men, was *uck down where his monument now stands. CoT Pletely taken by surprise as they were, Wiilia,^' forces were soon routed and fell back toward the lake pursued by the French and Indians. Some of the men were, however, rallied by Lieutenant-Colonel M Mting and with the aid of a party sent out from Johnson's camp at the lake and some Mohawk Indians covered the retreat, fighting from behtd rees m true Indian fashion and falling slowly S th s plucky body of men after delivering their last volley, three-fourths of a mile from the lafe an'i ed .n good order. This affair was long know,'. ""he Dloody morning scout." THE BATTLE OF UKE GEORGE At the camp at Lake George no one su,spected the eighborhoodoftheenemyuntilaboutnineo'cIockL "ouuhr^'f^"^?^"-^^'--'' -' 'he ambtsh about three miles south. Then at last these untried menreah.edtheirdangerandwenttoworki,rh™te to build some sort of a rude defense. They dra Jed boats and wagons to their front and with them fnd haSsLr f ' f"'^ -^dbranchesoftreesbSltthe hastiest sort of a barricade about their camp, hauling up cannon from the beach for it's defense. There we2 not more than seventeen hundred effective men of 25 them and they were a good deal demoralized by the morning's rout, so that a brisk assault at this moment would probably have carried the improvised works, boats, wagons, cannon and all. Dieskau guessed that a surprise would be too much for these raw New York and New England levies and he had intended to chase the fugitives to their very camp and enter it with them pell-mell, but his Can- adians and Indians were an unmanageable sort of troops, trying to the soul of a French field marshal. They had scattered everywhere through the woods in pursuit of the retreating English and were alreadj^ plundering and scalping the dead. Dieskau called a halt not far from the lake and caused a trumpet to be blown to call in the scattered men. The Indians and Canadians came in but slowly, unwilling to involve themselves in a fresh fight; for Indians never tempt, their luck by following up a success, and the Canadians had been taught in the school of Indian warfare. The morning's victory was enough for them, but Dieskau insisted and they followed sullenly in the rear of the French regular troops as the latter marched briskly up the road to Lake George. Presently the farmer soldiers behind their wagons and upturned boats at the Lake George camp saw the French coming up the road in beautiful order, their white uniforms and polished arms glistening in the sun. As they approached from the front the Indians came around through the woods on the left of the en- campment and charged down the hill where Fort George afterwards stood, yelling and whooping in 26 their own blood curdling manner. It was too much for the untried men in Johnson's little army; some of them slunk back, but their officers drew their swords and threatened to run them through if they did not stand to their posts. At this moment an assault would have won the day; but Indians have no stomach for this sort of fighting. Instead, they scattered about the camp, after their manner, each man behind a tree and firing on his own account. The French deployed, formed among the trees in the front and fired. But the English cannon, under the command of a good officer, Captain Eyre^ greeted them with dis- charges of grape shot which made "streets, lanes and alleys" through the ranks of the French and com- pelled them to seek a place of greater shelter. On they came again^ however, and there was a hot and steady fire on both sides, which seemed to the unac- customed ears of a surgeon in the English camp like "nothing but thunder and lightning and perpetual pillai'S of smoke." Johnson soon retired to his tent with a flesh wound in the thigh and Lyman, lawyer though he was, staid in the thick of the fight for about four hours, encouraging the men. They were getting into the spirit of the thing by this time. As the wounded were carried to the rear, the wagoners in the camp seized their guns and powder horns and joined in the fight, while some of the men who ran out of ammunition "picked up the enemy's and gen- erously returned it to them." A body of Indians now opened fire from the com- manding hill where Fort William Henry was after- wards built, but a few shell dropped among them scat- 27 tered them. For two hours Dieskau attacked the front and left of the English camp. He then came around to the right and for two hours more the strug- gle was at this pointy where were the regiments of Colonel Ruggles, of Titcomband of the dead Williams, Titcomb was killed at this point, fighting from behind a tree in advance of the barricade, in true frontier fashion. Once more the French returned to the front and tried to gain the rear, but some well directed shot from a thirty-two pounder "made them shift their berth." The French regulars, who had borne the brunt of the fight, w^ere badly cut to pieces but the doughty Baron would not give up the day. At length he wa& shot in the leg. His adjutant, Montreuil, was washing the wound with brandy, after the practice of the day^. w^ien the unfortunate general was hit in the knee and in the thigh. The Baron was helped to a sitting posture behind a tree, and Montreuil fetched two Ca- nadians to carry him off, but one of them was shot and fell dead across Dieskau,. who in agony from his injuries and wounded pride, cursed the Indian and Canadian troops for cowards and authors of the misfortunes of the day and ordered Montreuil to leave him and lead the French once more against the Eng- lish, saying that here was as good a deathbed as any for him. It was about five o'clock in the afternoon when Mont- reuil took command of the French forces. They were already wavering and no sooner did the hardy Ameri- can frontiersmen in the English camp perceive thfs than they scaled their barricades and rushed upon them with clubbed muskets and hatchets. There 28 was nothing left for Montreuil but to lead a retrear. The Frenchmen took to the woods and made their way around the south end of French mountain, drop- ping their accoutrements as they fled. Their flight probably gave its name to the mountain though I have heard it ascribed by an old inhabitant to the fact that two Frenchmen once spent some months on the mountain where they were believed to have re- covered some treasure buried by these fugitives, un- likely as it is that men laden wi+h their own provis- ions would have lugged valuables about with them in a wilderness or climbed a mountain to conceal it on a precipitate flight. It is certain that the fugitive French^ having left their knapsacks behind them, suffered greatly for food before they reached South Bay where they took to their canoes and paddled back to Ticon- deroga. The battle of Lake George will be forever memorable as the first struggle in which the untrained farmers of America faced the finely drilled troops of the Old World and learned the courage which afterwards led them to dare to bring on the struggle of the Revolu- tion. THE BLOODY POND FfGHT. Many of the Indians and Canadians of Dieskau's army were in no such haste as their French comrades. Before the battle at the lake was over they had de- serted the fight and returned to the battlefield of the morning to scalp and plunder the dead. The commandant at Fort Edward, knowing nothing of the danger which had threatened him but hearing ^2^ 'ot the wagoners who had been kiUed on the road, sent out a party of sixty men to scour the woods. This party returned with the report that firing had been heard toward Lake George, whereupon some two hundred men under Captains Folsom and Mc- Ginnis were ordered to marcli to the assistance of General Johnson. Advancing up the Lake George road, these men found the French knapsacks and baggage lying on the ground where they had been dropped before the ambush of the morning. On a hill were a few Indians on the lookout, but the Fort Edward party contrived to get between them and the baggage. Further on they came upon the enemy seated on the margin of a little pool in the woods, rest- ing and waiting no doubt to see what would be the fate of their deserted comrades at the lake before they made good their retreat with their booty. There were three hundred of the Canadians and Indians and but two hundred and ten of the Fort Edward men, but the latter were mostly cool frontiersmen and a deadly aim. They fell upon the others around the pool and a sharp fight ensued in which one of the leaders, Captain McGinnis, was mortally wounded but did not cease to give orders until the Canadians and Indians fled, when he fainted and was carried on horse to Lake George, there to die. The Port Edward men reached the battlefield at this place in time to see the last of the French rout. Because of the stub- born struggle around the dark little pool in the woods, and because, as it is said, the dead were afterwards thrown into it as a simple method of burial it got the name of Bloody Pond, and keeps it to this day. 30 BARON BIESKAU'S DANGER. The wounded general, afield marshal of France and a German nobleman, was left alone on the forest battlefield at the close of the day's action. He had ■caused his laced hat and coat to be laid beside him, probably with the idea that they would indicate his i-anli to those who found him. The first man to observe him skulked cautiously up and took shelter behind a tree, as was common in Indian and frontier warfare. The battle was scarcely over and it was a question whether the fellow would not murder him, so Dieskau put his hand to his pocket for his w^atch to offer it as a bribe. Instantly the man fired, sup- posing that the wounded oflicer was about to draw a pistol. The ball penetrated the hips and perfor- ated the bladder of the unfortunate general. ''You rascal, why did you fire?" the Baron demand- ed. "You see a man lying in his blood on the ground and you shoot him." "How did I know," the fellow answered, in broken English, for he was a renegade Frenchman. "How did I know you did not have a pistol? I had rather kill the devil than have the devil kill me." "You are a Frenchman!" exclaimed Dieskau. ^*Yes," was the reply, "it is more than ten years since I left Canada." Several of those harpees who haunt a battlefield now fell upon the wounded general and began to strip him of his clothes, but he soon pursuaded them to carry him to their general, which they did, eight of them bearing him in a blanket to Johnson's tent, who when he learned that the French commander was "31 "his prisoner, called for surgeons and refused to liaTe bis own wound treated until those of the suffering Baron were attended to, A new danger now awaited Dieskau, which he did •not suspect. Those troublesome allies, the Indians, were drunk with revenge, as was usual with them after a battle. The morning's losses had fallen heavily on them and forty out of two hundred had been -slain, including several important chiefs. They had had no appetite for the struggle of the afternoon but looked on while the battle raged, saying that they were come to see their English brothers fight. At the xylose of the day they invaded the battlefield and took -seventy scalps; but they were still enraged though far from being so high spirited as their English brothers could have wished. Some of them now walked into General Johnson's camp as freely as they had been wont to haunt his mansion on the Mohawk, The suf- fering Dieskau, lying on Johnson's pallet, could not understand their talk but he observed by their voices *hat they were angry and saw that they cast sullen glances at him from time to time as they talked. When they were gone he asked Johnson what they wanted, ■* * What do they want?" repeated Johnson. ' To burn you, by God; eat you and smoke you in their pipes, in revenge for the three or four of their chiefs that were killed. But do not fear, you shall be safe with me or they will kill us both." Dieskau wished to be removed lest he should in- commode his host, but Johnson said: **I dare not 32 move you, for if I did so the Indians would massacre you. They must have time to sleep." These worthies came into the tent again at eleven o'clock at night. Their voices were very menacing, but no one knew better how to manage them than did Johnson, and at last they seemed quieted, and came and shook hands with the wounded general before leaving. It was now midnight and Johnson caused Dieskau to be removed to a colonel's tent under guard of a captain and fifty men. The men on guard were charged to let no Indian into the tent but when morn- ing had come and one presented himself unarmed they let him pass. No sooner, however, was the rascal in than he drew a naked sword out from under his xiloak and sprang at the wounded general. But the Colonel was too quick for him: he threw himself be- tween the savage and his victim, disarmed the fellow nnd pushed him out of the tent. AVith this last adventure Dieskau' s danger from the Indians was over, for nothing could induce them to re- main longer at Lake George. They must go home, they said, to cheer their people after the death of so many warriors and Johnson was obliged to present them with two pieces of black blanketing with which to cover the graves of the dead, according to Indian customs of condolence. When Baron Dieskau had sufficiently recovered to bear the journey he was carried to NewYork on a lit- ter. He was for some time a prisoner in England and afterwards returned to France where he died twelve years to a day after the battle of Lake George, of the effects of the wounds received on that field. The French in Canada were greatly grieved over the 33 defeat of Dieskau and now that it had failed were ready to call his expedition "a piece of bravado." They were disgusted that *'so glorious a trophy" as a French field marshal should have been left on the field of bat- tle and wished that he might have been brought off, "dead or alive." HOLDING LAKE GEORGE. The battle of Lake George caused the expedition against Crown Point to be abandoned, as perhaps it would soon have been in any case • because of the lateness of the season and the difficulty of bringing up the necessary stores from Albany. The murder of some teamsters near Fort Edward before the battle and the alarm of the French invasion caused those who had w^agons and horses to hide them and drivers to decline the perilous service. Most of the provis- ions for the expedition w^ere still at Albany ; the greater part of the ammunition and boats remained at Fort Edward, and a few jaded horses w^ere all that Johnson could command. The battle had another result for the English. They began to fortify themselves on Lake George. The spirited attack of Dieskau had taught them the neces- sity of this. Entrenchments were thrown up around the camp and a fort was begun on a rise of ground on the lake shore, in the eastern part of the present grounds of the Fort William Henry Hotel. Johnson named this post William Henry after a young English prince, the King's grandson, and rechristened the fort at the Great Carrying Place, Fort Edward, after another young prince, though it had been known for Z4- sfome months as Fort Lyman^ in honor of the Brave officer of that name. While Fort William Henry was building the French were entrenching themselves at TJconderoga^ so that^ they now commanded one end of Lake George and the English the other. Here the rival powers were nearer each other than at any other point, only something? ever thirty miles of placid water flowing between^ them. When Johnson had first heard of the intended: French invasion he had asked for more men.. These- eame in October. They were dressed in summer clothing, with no covering but one thin homemade blanket each, and they shivered in their camp a,s winter came on apace in this cold northern climate^ They were a disorderly tot of newly-levied men w^ho- had been reared in the half-wild freedom and equal- ity of a new land, and their officers, chosen by the men from among themselves,- commanded no respect.- When the cold November rains set in and muddy- water stood in the tents they clubl^d their muskets and marched off in squads. The camp finally broke up on the twenty-seventh of the month, and a few~ men from each of the northern colonies were left to« hold the post, while the rest marched off down the road to Fort Edward, insulting their colonel by the way. In the next summer, that of 1756, the English meant at least to capture Ticonderoga, by way of Lake George. Again a great many men got together at Albany, and seven thousand of them slowly made their way up the Hudson toward Lake George, pes- 35 tered on their way by gangs of Indians who discour- aged straggling by scalping the stragglers. The new Fort William Henry was in command of Colonel Jonathan Bagley, a jocular fello>v, who, when he was ordered to hurry on the boat building which was now in progress at Lake George, answered that ''every wheel ' ' should go ' 'that rum and human flesh could move," But, in spite of honest Bagley's efforts, the campaign proved a failure, for there was a deal of confusion about provisions besides a change of com- manders at midsummer, which was no improvement, and the English troops, like the King of France and his forty thousand men in the nursery rhyme, having marched up the Hudson, marched down again at the end of the season, but not without leaving many dead behind them at their unsanitary camping places. The French, left unmolested at Ticonderoga, amused themselves with fishing and hunting the ducks, geese, partridges, beavers and clouds of wild pigeons which they foiind there. SCOUTING ON LAKE GEORGE. Lake George was now the center of warfare. Ticon- deroga swarmed with Indians from the northwest who made their way with ease over the immense system of waterways commanded by the French to this "nest of hornets." From here they fell upon the thinly peopled back settlements of the English w ith fire and the hatchet. Wild Pottawatomies ascend- ed Lake George to pick off the sentinels at Fort Wil- liam Henry with their stone-headed arrows, and once an English captain and fifty men were caught in an 36 ambush not far from the latter fort, and only six escaped to tell the tale. The English garrison at Fort William Henry had no Indians to send on like errands against Ticonder- oga; no one to annoy the enemy and render him more wary; no one to capture an occasional prisoner from Avhom they might learn what the French were doing and what were their numbers. The English were never so successful as the French in managing their Indian neighbors. They might count themselves lucky that they had Sir William Johnson to keep the Iroquois from going bodily over to the French. These Indians declined to scout about posts and gradually there grew up among the English colonists a body of hardy and adventurous rangers, whose headquarters were at Lake George. Among these men were Stark and Putnam, afterwards generals in the war of the Revolution. Sturdy frontiersmen they were, adven- turous hunters and Indian fighters. The most fam- ous of them all, and their leader, was Robert Rogers, a man who had smuggled goods through the waters of Lake George before the war. In this doubtful trade he had learned to speak French, and, what was of more importance, knew the forests and mountains of these inland water courses by heart. His character was not an admirable one. Later in life he was sus- pected of dishonesty and treason, but he was a man of a good deal of natural ability, and never was there a better scout. Rogers and the hardy rangers of whom he was captain skated in the winter time down Lake George or clambered over drifts in their snowshoes and 37 approached Ticonderoga to take daring observations of the works or intercept some small party of the garrison. During the open season they descended Lake George in boats, and if at its lower end they discerned signs of the enemy they laid by and feigned to be fishermen until night gave them a chance of escape. Quickness and stealth they practised, like their Indian forerunners on these waters, and above all things they dreaded a light snowfall in which they might be tracked, for their service was an exceedingly perilous one. Rogers, however, made light of its perils and called a stealthy journey to Ticonderoga, makinsT a visit to his "old friends, the French guard," who knew him indeed only too well. Once he and several others boldly marched up to a sentinel whose challenge Rogers answered in French. ''Qui etes vous?" demanded the puzzled fellow. "Rogers!" replied the famous scout, and he hurried him off a prisoner to where his boats lay hidden at the foot of the lake for the return trip to Fort William Henry. In June of 1756, Rogers was ordered by the English general, then making ready for a blow at Ticonderoga which never was struck, to go to Lake Champlain and intercept provisions and parties of the enemy. Rogers selected for his purpose fifty men and five whale boats. The party embarked on the beach at the head of Lake George and descended the lake un- til nightfall when they all encamped on an island. The next day they made for a point on the east shore, carried their boats over the mountains and launched them in South Bay; they descended this southern arm 38 of Lake Champlain at night and when morning came they hid their boats within six miles of Ticonderoga. All day they lay in hiding and at night they slipped by the hostile fort. They could hear the sentinels at Ticonderoga calling to one another and they counted the camp fires to judge of the numbers of the French force at this post. They hid their boats for the day five miles below Ticonderoga and the next night attempted to pass Crown Point, but the sky was so clear that they feared being discovered and returned to their hiding place for another day. As they lay hidden in the woods on the margin of the lake they saw one hundred boats pass up and down between the two French forts and once seven boat loads of French soldiers were about to land at their very hid- ing place, but finally chose a spot farther on, where they might be seen eating their dinner all uncon- scious of the lurking enemy. The next night found the rangers in their boats once more and this time they slipped safely by be- tween Crown and Chimney Points under cover of the darkness and landed ten miles below. The follow- ing day as they lay concealed they saw thirty boats and a schooner pass down the lake on the way to Canada. They descended the lake fifteen miles farther before they dared attempt anything and then they lightened their boats and prepared for the attack of a schooner lying a mile below them; but two lighters meantime came in sight and made for Eogers' hiding place. The rangers fired upon them and offered quarter but the crews pushed for the opposite shore and Rogers gave them chase. He captured the two 39 vessels and sank them, with their cargoes of flour, wine and brandy, though not until he had prudently hidden a few of the brandy casks in the woods, for future use. There were twelve men on the two boats, three of whom were killed and one wounded. With heartlessness worthy of an Indian, Rogers dispatched the wounded man, since he was unable to walk and if left behind would give the alarm and cause a pursuit of the rangers. The prisoners said they belonged to a detachment of five hundred men who were not far be- hind. When Rogers heard this he made haste to hide his boats and struck through the woods for Fort Will- iam Henry which he reached with eight prisoners and four scalps, for these men imitated the Indians even to the taking of these hateful trophies. * *It is an abominable kind of war, ' ' said a French officer who had witnessed Indian cruelties at Ticonde- roga. **The air one breathes is contagious of insensi- bility and hardness." Rogers afterwards retraced his way through the woods to his boats, and no doubt to his brandy, descended Lake Champlain almost as far as its foot, took three prisoners, hid his boats once more and re- turnod to Fort William Henry a second time without having been discovered. A month later the French were astonished to find some English boats in a cove eight miles north of Crown Point. They could not understand how they got there and sent out exploring parties to see if there were not some unknown water passage around Crown Point and Ticonderoga. 40 A WINTER ATTACK ON FORT WILLIAM HENRY. The battle of Lake George had taught both the French and the EngUsh caution, and the midwinter of 1757 found them watching one another from either end of Lake George, which was frozen as smooth as a floor. Montcahn, the new French general did not propose to imitate the rash example of Dieskau, but the Governor of Canada, who had had far less expe- rience, was more enterprising, and planned a winter attack upon Fort William Henry, of which he hoped to gain the honors by placing his brother in com- mand. In February a body of French and Canadian soldiers and some Abenaki Indians marched up Lake Champlain on the ice, dressed in overcoats, moccasins and mittens and dragging sleds laden with bearskins and blankets for bedding; kettles for cooking; old sails by way of tents; provisions, and a change of moccas- ins and mittens. These men rested for a week at Ticonderoga, where they made three hundred scaling ladders. It was the fifteenth day of March, 1757, and still winter in this northern latitude, when they marched out from Ticonderoga and began to ascend Lake George. On the evening of the eighteenth they halted under the edge of a mountain, three miles from the head of the lake. There were about three hundred and forty effective men in Fort William Henry, commanded by Major Eyre, a good engineer, one of the few officers who had escaped Braddock's defeat, and the man who had served the artillery so well at the Battle of Lake George. The works were not strong ; outside the fort were a hospital, a sawmill, a number of boats 41 which had been built the year before for the attack on Ticonderoga, piles of wood and lumber, some sloops which were frozen into the ice and one which was still on the stocks. The regular soldiers in the fort were Irishmen and were hardly recovered from a spree wath which they had celebrated St. Patrick's Day. Their American comrades, the rangers, would gladly have joined in the jubilation but Captain Stark, who was then commanding them, prudently spent the holiday in his tent, with a lame hand which troubled him so much that he was unable to write orders for extra rations of rum at the request of his men. These unwillingly sober fellows were on guard on the night of the eighteenth, and it was they who detected a sound of distant chopping, down the lake, as the French replenished their camp tires at one o'clock in the morning. Two hours later the senti- nels, on the alert now, heard the sound of many footsteps on the icy floor of the lake's surface. The French had depended on a surprise, for Canadian and Indian troops could not be counted on for an assault in any other case; but they knew that they were discovered when they heard the "Whos*^' of the watchful garrison. Shortly afterwards the fort cannon were discharged into the darkness in the direction of the telltale footfalls, and no more was heard at the fort of the besieging force that night. The next day the French '^nrrounded the fort, at a safe distance, and sent a body of Indians to occupy tl e road which Id to Fort Edward. They kept up a harmless, distant fire that day and under cover of the night again approached by the ice. Again they were 42 greeted with a discharge of grape and round shot and once more they retired, contenting themselves with setting fire to the sloops which lay frozen in the lake and the small boats along the shore which had been built at the expense of so much "rum and human flesh," the summer before. Some of the English soldiers sallied forth and attempted to save them, but it was too late. The next day the French lay quietly in the woods until noon, when they all marched across the lake at a safe distance, holding up their scaling ladders to view, like an army in a play. Sev- eral men were sent toward the fort, waving a red flag. Major Eyre dispatched a party to meet the flag, who presently returned with a blindfolded French officer, who bore a summons to surrender. The summons was accompanied by the usual threat of an Indian massacre in case of resistance, but Major Eyre paid no heed to this, merely replying that he intended to defend Fort William Henry to the last. The Frenchman returned with this message, and the army on the ice approached as if to carry out their threat of an assault, but only fired a harmless volley against the wall of the fort and retired. At night the French were once more heard upon the ice and the garrison prepared for the promised assault; but the enemy was contented with falling upon the huts, storehouses, hospital, sawmill, lumber and wood which lay without the fort, building fires of pitch pine against them and burning all to the ground, not without hopes that the flames would spread to the wooden walls of the fort itself. The falling cinders did indeed threaten the soldiers' barracks, and the 43 men were forced to tear the roofs off these buildings to save them. The next day a moist snow fell and the French staid in their camp, but on the day following some volunteers ventured so near the fort as to fire the sloop on the stocks. Five of these men were killed — the sole loss of the whole expedition. The remainder of the French kept at a safe distance on the ice while the sloop went up in flames and ended the exploits of the winter siege, for the following morning found French, Canadians and Indians on their way down the lake, laboring through the three feet of snow which now covered the ice, many of them snow blind and led on to Ticonderoga by the hand. The Gov- ernor of Canada, a vain-glorious mortal, made the most of this attempt and boasted that by its means the plans of the English had been "calcined." MONTCALM ON LAKE GEORGE. The plans of the English had in fact taken quite another direction. A grand attack upon the fortress of Louisburg was proposed by the feeble English com- mander. Lord Loudoun, and most of the forces were the next summer drawn away from Fort William Henry and Fort Edward for this purpose. The French general, Montcalm, had bided his time and he now saw his chance to dislodge the English from Lake George. Agents of the French had been at work among the northwestern Indians all winter, persuad- ing them to join a great war party against the Eng- lish, and the July of 1757 found a thousand of these savages gathered in Canada, in addition to a number 44 of mission Indians from Maine and from Montreal^ to whom Montcalm sung the war song, in the person of his aides, who chanted again and again the words, "Let us trample the English under our feet." During July numbers of sloops, bateaux and canoes were busily plying up and down Lake Champlain, moving Montcalm's forces to Ticonderoga. At the last of the month eight thousand men, two thousand of whom were Indians, were assembled here. The French and Canadians laboriously dragged boats, cannon and stores across the portage, while their Indian allies gobbled a week's rations in three days and fell upon some cattle designed for the French army. It was "a St. Bartholomew of the oxen," as one French officer said. The western Indians busied themselves in "making medicine" to insure success, and all joined in frequent war dances, where the warriors, painted with Vermillion, white, green, yellow and a black made of the scrapings of kettles and applied with the aid of bear's grease, their scalp locks adorned with feathers, their ears split and weighted until they reached their shoulders, and knives suspended around their necks, danced through the assembly, holding up some animal's head, to represent the head of the enemy, and boasting of their own prowess. A party of one hundred and thirty of the Indians under Marin, a French leader, penetrated the woods as far as Fort Edward and returned with thirty scalps, which, however, it was afterwards found, represented only eleven men, the Indians having learned the art of subdividing these trophies, since they brought a good price in Canada. At another time three hun- 45 dred English soldiers, most of whom were from New Jersey and little used to Indian warfare, descended Lake George and were ambushed by the Indians at Sabbathday Point, where the savages fired on them at short range and then darted out and pursued them in their swift canoes. The frightened Jerseymen were overtaken. Many of them leaped into the water where they were speared like fish, and others were overtaken in the woods by their fleet-footed pursuers. Two hundred out of the three hundred were killed or captured, and the bodies of the dead floated for some time on the waters of the lake or lay along its shores. The Indians were afterwards discovered by a horri- fied priest making a meal of one of these poor fellows. The prisoners met a happier fate, for when they were taken by the French to be sent to Canada their In- dian masters stipulated that they should be shod and fed on white bread, having an eye, no doubt, to the ransom which they could extract for them from the Canadian government. It was impossible for the French to put down the barbarous practices of the Indians without wounding the sensibilities of these touchy sons of the forest and losing their aid. Their red allies were indeed a sore trouble to the French, and Montcalm found, as Dies- kau had before him, that it required the patience of an angel to bear with them. They insisted on being consulted by the French general as to all his move- ments, and often he had to be guided by their whims, for the French deemed Indians as important in forest warfare as cavalry on the plains. These people were now very much puffed up with their 46 success at Sabbathday Point and their arrogance be- came unbearable. They said the lake was "red with the blood of Corlear," for so they called the English, and they were determined immediately to return home with their strings of scalps, saying that it would be tempting the master of life to venture on another fight. Montcalm was obliged to hold a council with them and bind them to him with an enormous wam- pum belt of six thousand beads. On the eve of de- parture he would let them have no brandy, and they grew uneasy and paddled up Lake George to the neighborhood of Sabbathday Point, where they amused themselves with killing rattlesnakes. There were not boats enough to carry all of the army of eight thousand men as well as the cannon, stores and provisions, and on the thirtieth of July twenty-five hundred men, guided by the Canadian Mohawks and under the command of the Chevalier de Levis, started up the west shore of the lake on foot. They followed an old Indian trail up over Rogers' Rock, or Bald Mountain, as it was then called, and through the almost impenetrable forests and well-nigh impassible mountains of the Narrows to the mouth of Ganouske, or Northwest, Bay, where they halted to wait for the main army. The weather was so hot and the march so rough that two officers broke down by the way. At two o'clock in the afternoon of the first day of August, the main army embarked and began to ascend the lake. As the fleet rounded Anthony's Nose it was struck by one of those summer squalls common to this mountain lake, and the boats were 47 forced to lie by under the shelter of the point until it was over. Deluged with rain, the French then pushed on, and as they neared Sabbathday Point the deserted boats and the mutilated bodies of the English who had been routed here by the Indians, could be seen cast up upon the shores. At Isle a la Barque, or Harbor Island, the Indians were resting from their snake hunt and awaiting them. These savages, one thousand in number, in one hundred and fifty birch bark canoes, took the lead; then came hundreds of bateaux, or large, flat-bottomed boats loaded with soldiery, all in line, as though marching on land; next the siege cannon and mortars, each on a platform resting upon two bateaux and rowed by militia, followed by provision boats, the field hospital and last of all a guard of French soldiers. Never was there a finer pageant than this army, gay with banners, brilliant costumes and savage bravery, as it floated slowly through the Narrows on the night of the first and second of August, 1757. This fleet of boats rounded Tongue Mountain in the early morn- ing and made for the Bolton shore, guided by a tri- angle of fire built on the mountain side by the Chev- alier de Levis as a signal. They came to land on or near the site of the present village of Bolton, the men cooked their food and rested and a council was held. At ten o'clock Levis set forth again on the march along the shore, and Montcalm's army broke camp at noon and embarking advanced to Great Sandy Bay, as Basin Bay was then called, where it halted once more, until six o'clock, when all advanced to 48 the small bay opposite Diamond Island, where Can- non Point hid them from Fort William Henry. THE SIEGE OF FORT WILLIAM HENRY. It was impossible that an army should have gather- ed at Ticonderoga and the garrison at Fort William Henry remain ignorant of the fact. General Webb, who was in command of all the forces on the New York frontier, hearing of Fort William Henry's dan- ger, came up from Fort Edward, a few days before the arrival of the French, and the enemy heard at Ticon- deroga the discharges of cannon with which the gar- rison greeted him on his arrival. After inspecting the works he returned to Fort Edward where he wrote to ask for the militia and sent a thousand men from his garrison to aid in the defense of Lake George. He was left with sixteen hundred men at Fort Edward and eight hundred more at the various carrying places on the Hudson and at Albany. He was not a man of great activity or courage and easily persuaded himself that it was his duty to remain at Fort Edward and pro- tect the lower country. Col. Monroe, the brave Scotchman who command- ed at Lake George, had now twenty-two hundred men with which to defend this post. Most of these men were encamped back of the present Fort William Henry Hotel, on the rise of ground where the Catho- lic Church now stands. There was a well entrenched camp on the hill where Fort George was afterwards built to which the men would retire for greater secur- ity in case of a siege and from this point relieve each 49 other in guarding the fort. The fort itseh" stood on the east side of and in the grounds of the present hotel of the same name and directly overlooks the marsh and the beach where the modern railroad station now stands. Its earthern embankments, which may be tracked to this day, formed an irregular square with bastions and were surmounted with parallel walls built of pine logs and tilled in with earth. Connected with the fort was a farm which occupied the present grounds of the Fort William Henry Hotel and extend- ed for some distance across and beyond the Plank Road of our day. For half a mile around, to the very foot of the mountains, indeed, the noble first growth pines had been cut down, that they might not shelter a lurking foe, and lay pell-mell, as they had fallen, a well-nigh impenetratable mass. The Fort Edward road ended at the lake shore, about at the middle of the beach, and still exists in a neighborhood road which runs between the Fort George hill and the site of the Battle of Lake George. The fort w as defended on the north by the lake, on the east by the marsh which the present railroad partly occupies, and on the south and west by "chevaux-de-frise. ' ' On its ram- parts were seventeen cannon, some swivels and mor- tars; within its wall was the smallpox, a silent enemy which preyed upon armies in those days. At ten o'clock on the night of the second of August two boats put off from the fort on a scouting expedi- tion. The men had rowed down the lake to the neighborhood of Diamond Island when their atten- tion was attracted by a strange object against the west shore. It was in fact an awning over a boat in 50 which were the French priests, and about and behind it were the whole French army. To approach too near was certain death, but the scouts pushed onward, curious to know what it might be. They were com- ing every moment nearer and a thousand Indians were lying in wait for them, when there arose a plaintive bleating from a sheep confined on a French provision boat. The scouting party suddenly turned at the warning sound and made for the east shore. Instantly the death yell rang through the air, from something like a thousand savage throats, and innum- erable canoes sped out from shore. For many min- utes there was a breathless chase The Indians sped on until they saw that the English were likely to make the other shore and escape when at last they lired upon them. The pursued men returned the fire as they pulled on for their lives. The Indians killed several of them in the end and captured three. The remainder escaped to the woods of the east shore. The prisoners gave Montcalm valuable information of the position and plans of the garrison; the fugitives made their way through the woods to the fort and warned the English of the approach of the enemy. That night there was mourning among the Indians. A Nippising chief had been killed in the fray. His tribesmen dressed him in the most magnificent of savage costumes, loaded him with necklaces of por- celain beads, adorned him with nose and ear pend- ants, put silver bracelets on his arms, hung a gorget by a scarlet ribbon at his throat, concealed the pallid hue of death on his face with the most brilliant paints, placed a pipe in his mouth, a tomahawk at 51 his belt, a lance in his hand, rested his gun in the hollow of his stiffened arm and deposited a kettle filled with food at his side. The dead chief, thus attired, was seated upon a little grassy eminence while his friends surrounded him listening to the funeral oration, dancing a solemn dance, to the tink- ling of small bells, and finally burying him as he sat, well equipped, as they thought, for the journey to another world. At two o'clock the firing of a cannon at Fort Wil- liam Henry broke on the stillness of the night air and announced that the garrison was warned of the presence of the enemy. Indian scouts brought word that the English were in motion, Montcalm, on the chance that they might be coming to attack him, formed his army for battle. At daybreak the French marched in three colunnis up the west shore, while the Indians approached the fort by water, their can- oes making a line from shore to shore. The artillery as it rounded Cannon Point fired a salute to the doomed fort. The English tents might still be seen standing on the high ground behind the fort, but the garrison was busy striking them and burning their huts, that these might afford the enem no shelter, gathering in their horses and cattle from the woods and skirmishing with the Indians, who began to hover around them. Montcalm thought of making an assault on the entrenched camp at Fort George hill, and he marched his army around to the eastward of this spot. The English, with the exception of those on duty in the fort, were now collected at this point, and the men 52 could be heard busily stieiigthening the works, which were defended by six cannon in addition to those in the fort. Montcalm stood not far from the spot where Dieskau had been defeated, and his final decision was not to risk the men so sorely needed for the de- fense of Canada in an assault. He chote instead the site of the present village of Caldwell for a regular siege. He gradually withdrew his main army to the farther side of the little ravine north of Caldwell now known as Brink's Hollow and encamped on land afterwards included in the grounds of the mansion house of James Caldwell, leaving a body of Indians and Canadians encamped on the Fort Edward road to cut off all communication with that post. On the first day of the siege Montcalm summoned the garrison to surrender, wath the usual threat of the French that the Indians might become unman- ageable in case they were irritated by a stubborn resistance. While the flags of truce were flying these braves scattered over the fort fields, and when Monro made answer that he should defend the post to the last and discharged all his cannon to make his reply the more emphatic, a chief shouted back to the fort, in broken French: "You won't surrender, eh! Fire away, then, and fight your best, for if I catch you I shall give you no quarter!" The next day, which was the fourth of August, the last of the French troops were withdrawn to the camp north of the little hollow, and Levis' men, besides scouting on the Fort Edward road, were ordered to appear here and there about the fort in a very active manner, that the English might think themselves surrounded. In reality it was impossible to com- pletely surround Fort William Henr}- without a much larger army, though the garrison was indeed invested with inaccessible woods and abandoned to its fate by those who might have succored it. The French, however, knew nothing of this. They believed that Webb had six thousand men at Fort Edward. When night came on the cannon were landed at the spot still known as Artillery Cove, and trenches were opened for the siege. Eiglit hundred men worked hard all night, sawing and chopping up the great trees left lying on the ground and digging out the stumps and roots before they could work in the soil itself. Cannon ball and shells from the fort guns flew above and around them and occasionally a man was wounded. Pieces of these shells and the remains of the siege works are still found in the gardens of Caldwell. So well did the men work that morning found them delving under cover from the guns of the fort, except at the battery on the extreme right, where the ground was very difficult. Some soldiers were killed in the camp on the mansion house grounds and Montcalm moved two regiments from the lake shore on this account. At four o'clock on this third day of the siege mes- sengers came to Montcalm with word that two thou- sand men were marching up the Fort Edward road to the relief of Fort AVilliam Henry. The French general immediately sent a portion of his army to the aid of Levis, but the two thousand men proved to be one poor messenger, who was killed by the Indians. His vest, containing a letter concealed in a hollow 54 musket ball, was brought to Montcalm. The letter was from the English general, Webb, to Colonel Monro, and Montcalm read in it, what must have been news to him, that the French army was thirteen thousand strong, besides the fact that Webb could do nothing for Monro until the militia arrived. It ad- vised him to make the best terms he could. This letter, while it encouraged the French, caused Mont- calm to hurry on the work in the trenches that he might capture the fort before the colonial militia should march to its relief. Many of the Indians were idling about their canoes or amusing themselves with firing into the fields of the fort and killing the horses and cattle belonging to the garrison, a kind of warfare greatly to their taste, while they did not hesitate to express their discon- tent that the "big guns" of the French were still silent. To remedy these matters, Montcalm called them to a council and reproved them for not aiding in the guarding of the Fort Edward road as he wished them to do. They replied that they had also some- thing on their hearts, which was that their French father had had the assurance to go on with the siege without consulting them. Montcalm explained that he had been too hurried to do so, and cleared their sight, cleansed their hearts and restored their senses in the approved Indian manner with two belts and ten strings of wampum. This ceremony performed, the Indians promised to do as Montcalm" wished, and he told them what was written in General Webb's letter and informed them that the ''big guns" would begin their work the next day. On the morning of the sixth of August the first 55 French battery of eight cannon and one mortar was unmasked. Amid the yells and whoops of the Indians several rounds were fire^ and then the guns played every two minutes upon the lake and garden sides of the fort, the English answering with a brisk fire and the savages making the mountains resound with their cries of joy whenever it chanced that the French guns did some evident execution. The next day at six o'clock in the morning the second battery was opened on the right. The two batteries joined in firing a salute on the arrival of Montcalm in the trenches. Both batteries then played an hour upon the fort and after a double salute from all the guns, accompanied by a deal of Indian whooping Montcalm dispatched one of his aides to the fort with the letter of General Webb which he had captured two days before. He was urged to this by the Indians, who thought that its discouraging tone would induce the garrison to surrender. Monro, however, merely thanked Montcalm for his polite- ness and said that he meant to make a gallant de- fense. The cannon opened fire once more on both sides and the Indians made the mountains ring when- ever a shell fell within the fort. These fellows were far from sticking to their hum-drum task of guarding the Fort Edward road. They were everywhere, and they admired so much the French manner of digging covered passageways that they imitated them, digging small pits outside the lines, from which they picked off the gunners at the fort. At three o'clock in the afternoon of this same day, which was the seventh of August and the fourth of 56 the siege, five hundred of the EngHsli made a sortie and tried to establish a post on the Fort Edward road, but they were driven back with a loss of fifty men. All the time the work went on in the trenches, which were rapidly approaching the fort. Two cowards deserted from the garrison, but when they approached the French lines through the fort garden, now the grounds of the Fort William Henry Hotel, some Indians who lay on their stomachs in advance of the French approaches fired upon them and in- stantly all the mountains about the lake echoed with the yells of the savages. The Fi-ench thought that the English had intended to make a sortie and were discouraged by these fearful whoops, but it is more likely that they disheartened deserters. The French siege works had now reached the edge of a small swamp which divided. them from the gar- dens of the fort, filled in that day with cat-tails and swamp grasses, but now known as Welch's Hollow, much of which has been filled up in improving the hotel grounds and building the Plank Road. Although it was morning and the men unprotected from the fire of the fort such was the haste of Montcalm that he ordered a bridge to be built across the hollow capable of bearing cannon. This was done by laying hurdles of hollow squares made of logs and fascines, or bundles of sticks, on the marsh, and building a sort of corduroy road on them. By afternoon the French had made a lodgment in the very gardens of the fort and the Indians crept ahead of them among the beans and corn and picked off men on the ram- parts. One brave even killed and scalped a woman 57 who had salUed forth in search of vegetables. It was on this same day, the eighth, that a panic-stricken Indian saw the glitter of arms upon one of the moun- tains and hurried to camp with the news. Instantly the whole French camp was in motion, a portion to repel the relief coming by way of the mountains and the remainder to protect the French intrenchments. The English, in their fortified camp on Fort George hill, were seen to be in motion, and the cannon were ordered to fire high that the balls might reach this spot and prevent them marching out to the aid of the relieving party. In fact there was no relief coming and tlie English were only making ready to receive the French, for when they saw them on the march they supposed that it was to attack them. THE FALL OF FORT WILLIAM HENRY. The next night the English fired long and briskly on the French as they labored hard in the fort garden to throw up works. The chance of dislodging them was the last hope of the garrison, and this failed, for by the morning of the ninth of August and the sixth day of the siege thirty-two French cannon were ready to open at short range on the walls of the fort, which were already pretty well battered down. Its large guns, which were of poor metal, were all burst or dis- abled, and but seven small cannon remained with which to answer the combined batteries of the be- sieging army. The French might now easily surround the doomed post, separate it from the entrenched camp on Fort George hill and when a breach had been made in its wall take it by assault, when all the 58 horrors of an Indian massacre would be certain to follow. On the morning of August ninth the officers held a council, at which it was agreed that the only course left was to surrender while good terms might yet be demanded. At seven o'clock a white flag was hoisted, a drum beat and an English officer with a wounded foot issued from the gate of the fort and rode to the French lines on horseback. Tlie garrison demanded to be allowed to march out with the hon- ors of war and retire to Fort Edward. It was not diflScult to make terms with Montcalm, for Canada had done so much fighting and so little farming dur- ing the war that her people were well-nigh starved and wanted no more mouths to feed. It was agreed that the garrison should march out of the fort with arms and baggage, should be escorted to Fort Edward by a body of French troops, should not serve in the war again for eighteen months and that all French prisoners of war should be returned to Canada in their stead. Before concluding the terms Montcalm took care to call a council of the Indians, consult them and exact a promise from them that they would prevent their young men from doing the English any harm. THE MASSACRE OF LAKE GEORGE. The garrison of Fort William Henry now hurriedly packed their baggage, Montcalm sent men to guard the ammunition and provisions, which were very precious to the French at this time, and caused all the barrels of rum and wine to be staved in; it being thought best to leave the remaining plunder to the 59 Indians. Some sick men still lay in the infected case- n:iates of the fort, neglected by friends and shnnned by foes because they were ill of the smallpox. At twelve o'clock the garrison of Fort William Henry marched out. While the ceremonies of capitulation were going on without the fort Indians climbed in through the casemates and their first act was to mur- der the sick whom they found there. Father Rou- beaud, an Indian missionary among the French, w-as horrified to see one brave come forth from the fort bearing the bleeding head of one of his victims and parading it as the most valuable of prizes. The gar- rison, fearing the Indians, begged a French guard, which was granted, and under its protection marched "in beautiful order" over to the entrenched camp on Fort George hill. The Indians hung around, sullen and discontented. To return without scalps, captives and plunder w^as to them a dismal prospect. Young braves felt that they were robbed of the honors and rewards due them, for they expected no other pay for their services. They dug up the dead and scalped them, and when later at their homes in the north- west they fell a prey to the smallpox concluded that the revengeful English had cast some spell upon them. When they had robbed the fort of its poor pickings of plunder and scalps they pushed insolently into the entrenched camp, where the French stood guard over the fallen garrison, wandered about feeling the long hair of the cowering women, and terrifying the children among the prisoners. Presently they began to plunder the camp chests of the English officers, who vigorously resisted them. Things had 60 an ugly look. The French guard T\-as alarmed. A messenger was sent to the French camp for Montcahn. He prayed, threatened and caressed; he called on the Canadian officers and interpreters to aid him in pre- venting a massacre, "Detestable position!" his aide cried, "of which no one who has not seen it can have any idea and which makes victory itself a sorrow to the victors." At last, hy nine o'clock at night the French gen- eral had restored order, had induced the Indians to promise to send some of their chiefs to Fort Edward with the English as a guard and had ordered the Canadian officers among the Indians to prevent fur- ther mischief. The English spent an uneasy night. Neither they nor the Indians slept. The latter hovered around their prey, begging rum of the English, who, willing to appease them, freely gave it from their canteens. Seventeen wounded men lay in huts in the camp. The day before the English surgeon turned them over to the French surgeon, who had placed a guard over them. For some reason this guard was removed, or deserted its post, and at five o'clock in the morning the Indians dragged these poor wretches from their pallets and murdered them. This added to the terror of the garrison. Men^ women and children gathered together in haste to be gone. The Indians crowded around them and began to snatch their baggage from them. Monro complained to the Canadian officers. They advised him to give up the baggage to the sav- ages. But nothing appeased the Indians. Their greedy eyes were upon everything portable. They 61 demanded food, ctothing — all they saw — "in a tone which announced that the thrust of a .spear would be the jjrice of a refusal." The frightened men complied with all their requests, stripping themselves of their very clothing if they might but purchase their lives. The French guard of four hundred men now arrived on the scene and hastily arranged themselves in order, while the garrison fell into rank and marched out of the entrenchments. As they filed out the Indians saw with greedy eyes their prey escaping. The Abenakis from Maine, Indians who had been converts for many years, but who were none the less inhuman at heart, had a grudge against the English colonists which called for i-evenge. It was their sharp hatchets which first fell upon those who from illness or any other cause straggled from the ranks, and other Indians soon followed their example, A num- ber of lifeless bodies were speedily strewn about the ground, and heavy blows fell right and left on all within reach, and especially on the New Hampshire regiment Vv^hich brought up the rear. A halt was ordered, but when those in front learned the cause they pushed on again in confusion. The butchery was soon over. Either the non-resistance of the helpless garrison, which had arms but no ammuni- tion, or the greed of the Indians, who could get a better price for a prisoner than a scalp, changed the massacre into a scramble for captives. ' 'The son was snatched from a father's arms, the daughter torn from the bosom of her mother, the husband separated from his wife, the officers stripped to their shirts;" and ''a crowd of unhappy beings were running about 62 at random, some toward the woods, others toward the tents of the French," and many toward the fort. The Canadian officers were either heartless or help- less in this emergency and told those who ran to them for protection to fly to the woods. The French guard seemed lost among so many bloodthirsty sav- ages mingled as they were with their helpless victims. Levis ran in all directions trying to quell the tumult. A French sergeant was killed by the blow of a spear in trj'ing to defend the English, and another officer was gravely wounded. The main French army was at too great a distance to be of any avail, and INIontcalm only arrived on the scene after the butchery was over and while the Indians were still rushing madly here and there in pursuit of captives. To use the words •of an eye witness, he ''multiplied himself, he was every w^here; prayers, menaces, promises, were used; he tried everything and at last resorted to force." He wrested the nephew of an English colonel from the hands of a warrior, and immediately a number of other Indians, preferring a scalp to nothing, murder- ed their prisoners. The tumult increased until some one thought of calling to the garrison, which still made a compact body, to increase their speed. They needed no second hint. Never was a double-quick march made in better time. The Indians were by this time laden with spoils and could not easily pur- sue. Some retired and the others were dispersed by the Frenchmen. About fifty were killed in this massacre and six or seven hundred taken captive. The van reached Fort Edward in some order, but many others, fleeing through the woods, half naked 63 and nearly famished, only found their destination by aid of the fort guns which were kept booming to guide them in. Numbers had fled to the French camp and to Fort William Henry for protection, where Monro had gone at the first of the trouble to make com- plaints. Father Roubeaud, who had witnessed the massacre, repaired to the fort immediately after, and there he .was surrounded bj' a crowd of weeping women, who kissed the hem of his robe and begged with j)iercing cries for news of their husbands and children. The good priest was touched to the heart but knew not what to do for them. A French officer presently came to him and told him that in the camp was a Huron Indian who had captured a baby of six months, and implored him to save it. Father Rou- beaud, glad to be able to relieve at least one of the sufferers, ran to the cabin of the Huron. He found the child in the arms of the savage, "tenderly kissing" his hands and playing with his porcelain beads. The good father began by praising the valor of the Huron people, but the Indian immediately guessed his object and said: "Hold! Do you see this baby? I have not stolen it. I found it left behind in haste. You want it but you shall not have it." Roubeaud told him that the tiny prisoner was use- less to him and would certainly die for want of proper food. The Huron i3roduced some fat and said he would feed the baby that, and if it did die he would bury it in some corner of ground and the priest might then say all the prayers he pleased over it. The 64 father offered a good sum in silver for the child, but the Indian refused. At last the fellow demanded another English prisoner in exchange for the baby, and Father Eoubeaud would have undertaken to pro- vide one had not some other Indians come in, with whom the Huron held a consultation, at which it was finally agreed that the priest should have the child in exchange for an English scalp. "It shall be forthcoming!" cried the good priest, "if you are a man of honor," and he hastened off to the camp of his Abenaki disciples and asked the first Indian he met if he had any scalps and if he would do him a favor. The fellow, with a savage's gener- osity, immediately untied his scalp pouch and gave Eoubeaud his choice. The priest selected a scalp, and, followed by a curious crowd of French and Can- adians, ran to the tent of the Huron, "joy," in his own words, seeming "to furnish" him "wings." ■*'See!" cried he, addressing the Huron, "see your payment. ' ' "You are right!" said the savage nurse, examining the scalp with the eye of a connoisseur, "it is indeed an English scalp, for it is red. Well, there is the child; carry it away, for it belongs to you." Fearing the Indian might change his mind, the good father hurried off with the baby, wrapping it in his robe, for it was almost naked, the little crea- ture crying by the way at his unaccustomed handling. He carried the baby to Fort William Henry, w^here all the women ran to him when they heard the wail- ings of the child, hoping to find their own lost babies. But none of them recognized it, and they all retired, 65 weeping afresh over their own losses. This left Father Eoubeaud in an embarrassing position. The baby seemed as likely to die in his hands as in those of the Huron. He was trying to think what he should do, when an English officer who spoke Frencli approached, and the priest told him his trouble. "Sir," said Eoubeaud, '*I have just ransomed ti is young infant from slavery, but it will not escape death unless you direct some one of these women to take the place of its mother and nurse it, until I shall be able to provide for it otherwise. ' ' The English officer found a woman who consented to go to Canada as nurse to the baby if the priest would answer for her life and that of her husband and promise to send them back to Boston. Father Roubeaud agreed to do all this, and guard- ing the woman, her husband and the baby, with an escort of three grenadiers, took them to the Canadian camp on the Fort Edward road, where he lodged. Scarcely had the party reached this spot when a piercing cry arose and a woman came running toward them. She snatched the child from the arms of its new nurse and abandoned herself to transports of joy, for she was the mother of the baby. Roubeaud had the pleasure afterwards of reuniting the whole family, for he found the father of the child suffering from a wound made by the bursting of a shell, and he led the wife to his side in a lonely part of the fort where he had crawled on account of his pains. The woman who had agreed to act as nurse to the little captive afterwards found her own baby, who was 66 restored to her through the kindnes? of a French officer. Montcahn meanwhile was busy rescuing as many of the English prisoners as possible. IXiring the day he gathered together about four hundred of them. These poor creatures were so stripped of their cloth- ing that the French geneial was obliged to buy it back of the savages wdio had plundered them. Some Indians, seized with contrition, voluntarily brought their captives to him^ raying that they had had no sense. Others hastened dow^n the lake with their prisoners, and at Montreal got a good price for them, the French being bound in honor to ransom them and return them to their country. Montcalm sent all the fugitives that he could collect to Fort Edward vfith a strong guard, which was hardly needed now as the Indians had sped away to their homes to dec- orate their wigw^ams with subdivided ecalps, boast of their exploits and suffer from the smallpox. The massacre of Lake George cost the French much of the fruits of their victory, and cast a stain on their honor, which, however unjust it might have been, w^as painful to them. The English, claiming that the capitulation had been broken, refused to return the French prisoners or detain the garrison of the fort from further fighting, as had been agreed. The first exaggerated accounts of the massacre and the rumor that Montcalm was advancing against Fort Edward and Albany struck terror to the hearts of the garrison at the former place, and had Montcalm ap- peared he w^ould, perhaps, have won an easy victory at Fort Edward. It was expected in Canada that he 67 would do so. But the facts are that he had no wagons (jr horses, his Indians were gone and he had sent his Canadians home that they might reap the harvests so sorely needed in Canada. Many of his men mean- while were occupied in destroying Fort William Henry; others were plying up and dawn the lake transporting the valuable stores taken with the fort to Ticonderoga, and he felt himself in no conditioin to make a successful resistance should the enemy march to Lake George against him, for he knew nothing of the faint-hearted character of their general* Fort William Henry was razed to the ground, its wooden walls were thrown into a great heap and burned, the dead bodies in its casemates and under- ground passages feeding for days the flames of this immense bonfire. Seven days after the capitulation, having hidden stores of cannon balls and sunk some boats he w^as unable to carry off, Montcalm was on his way down the lake. He left one battalion encamp- ed on an island, probably Diamond Island, until the return of the boats, when they were brought off, and Lake George was once more a wilderness, scarred with siege works and the ruins of a fort and sown with the dead. THE BATTLE OF ROGERS' ROCK. During the winter of 1758 Fort Edward was the English advance post and the headquarters of Rogers and his rangers, who did their best to plague the French at Ticonderoga. Once they spent the night among the ruins of Fort William Henry, where they found a heap of charred logs and rafters and frag- ments of exploded cannon covered with a new fallen snow. These rough fellows stopped for a moment to mournfully recall how they had here enjoyed "manj^ of the pleasures of a soldier's life," before camping under the edge of the earthworks for shelter from a biting wind which was tearing up the lake. The sharp eyes of Rogers foiind some of the hidden can- non balls and discovered the sunken boats, of which he took note, that they might be recovered. So active were these rangers that they well-nigh drove the ^commandant at Ticonderoga distracted, for they in- vaded the very ditches of the fort, took prisoners^ burnt wood piles and butchered cattle, to the horns of one of which they once left tied an ironical note, signed by Rogers^ in which he thanked the French officer for the fresh meat that he had enjoyed and sent his compliments to the Marquis de Montcalm. About the middle of March, 1758, Rogers was sent scouting by the commander at Fort Edward, with a body of one hundred and eighty men. He encamped the first night at Halfway Brook, so named because it crossed the Lake George road midway between that body of water and Fort Edward. The next day he marched up the road to the head of Lake George and down the lake on the ice to the beginning of the Narrows. He encamped for the night on the east shore, setting sentinels at intervals on land and keeping men walking on the frozen lake all night for fear of a surprise. The whole party resumed their march at sunrise of the next day. A dog running across the ice alarmed Rogers, who feared that Ind- ians were near, and he withdrew his men to the 60 Moods, where they donned snovvshoes and laboi-ed along over four feet of snow to the neighborhood of Sabbathday Point, where they all rested until night, when they again took to the ice. An advance guard of skaters was sent out, while the main body marched on through the darkness, hugging the west shore and dmgging toboggans loaded with their provisions. When the party was within eight miles of the lower end of the lake a messenger came skating back from the advance guai-d telling Rogers to halt. The men prompth' sat down on the ice, and Phillips, who commanded the advance-, presently came up with the news that he had seen a fire on the east shore^ Rogers immediately hid his baggage in a thicket and leaving a small guard with it marched to the east shore in search of the fire. It was not, however, to be found, and concluding that Phillips had mistaken patches of snow or i)hosphorescent wood for fire, he returned to his toboggans and camped there. The fire had in fact been a real one, built by some French scouts, who when they had descried the dark, mov- ing objects on the ice, quickly extinguished it and returned to Fort Ticonderoga, where they gave warning of Rogers' stolen march. At Ticonderoga a party of two hundrdd Indians and a number of Cana* dians and French volunteers was immediately made up to march against the pestilential Rogers. Ignorant that the enemy was warned, Rogers took up his march, the next day, through the woods back of the mountains on the west shore. The advance to avoid the deep snow took its way along the frozeri surface of Trout Brook while the other party on snow» 70 'shoes kept under the edge of the mountain. It chanced that the French and Indians had chosen this same ■stream for their approach from Ticonderoga. It was three o'clock in the afternoon and Eogers was about west of the mountain which bears his name when his advance discovered some ninety Indians coming toward them on the icy surface of the Httle stream. Eogers, who was on rising ground, immediately faced his men toward the brook and when the Indians came up opened fire on them. A number of them fell and the rest fled, about half of Eogers' men rush- ing off in pursuit. They cut down several of the fugi- tives with hatchets and cutlasses, but they suddenly found themselves face to face with a large force of soldiers who chased them back to Eogers' position, killing fifty of them by the way. Though Eogers' party numbered now only about one hundred and thirty men and the French and Indians were twice or three times as numerous, he made a stubborn resistance. His men occupied a rising ground and sheltered themselves behind trees where they fought gallantly until suns(3t. Again and again the French tried to get in his rear, and failed. At last two hun- dred of the enemy began ascending the mountain on his right for this purpose. Eogers hurried forward Lieutenant Phillijis and eighteen men to occupy this spot before them, but it was too late. Phillips was surrounded, the men in Eogers' front were becoming intermingled with the enemy, and one hundred and eight of them had fallen, when at last the remnant broke and fled, each man looking out for himself. Phillips and his men surrendered on promise of good 71 treatment, but they had better have fought till the last man was killed, for the Indians, furious over the losses which they had sustained, tied them to trees and hacked them to pieces. ROGERS' SLIDE. There was the usual chase. The wounded and fatigued fell an easy prey to the Indians, Rogers, followed by about twenty men, ran up the mountain, stopping from time to time to fire upon the pursuers. It is at this point that the legend comes in which connected the name of the bold ranger leader forever with Lake George. Rogers, it is said, reached the sum- mit of this mountain alone in his flight and walking to the edge of its immense rocky precipice, put his snowshoes on backward and walked back to a spot where he could clamber down to the lake, thus deceiving the pursuing Indians who when they reached the summit of the rock thought by the tracks that two men had thrown themselves down it, and seeing Rogers below running on the ice conclud- ed that there was some work of evil spirits in this and gave up the chase. Rogers does not tell this tale in his own journal, which is, however, but a bald narrative, bare of detail, and in which he was evi- dently anxious to represent himself as making as orderly a retreat as possible. The name of the rock bears testimony to the early belief in the truth of the story. Rogers and the few remaining fugitives soon found one another on the wide expanse of the frozen lake. There were a few wounded men among them when 72 they got together at the place where they had hidden their toboggans. A messenger was dispatched to Fort Edward for help, and the fugitives spent a cheerless night, without fire or blankets, the latter having been left with their knapsacks on the field of battle. The wounded suffered much, but did not complain. The next day they all made their way down to Hoop (probably Dome) Island, and here they were met by a relief party from Fort Edward. The French rejoiced in the idea that Rogers' had been killed, for his overcoat and papers were found on the battlefield ; but they found to their cost, six weeks later, that he was still living and ranging when he paid them a visit in his old style, killing one man and taking three prisoners, almost under the walls of Crown Point. THE BATTLE OF TICONDEROGA. By the year 1758 the great English minister, Pitt, was in power, and he planned vigorous attacks upon Canada from various points. One of the'?e was to be directed against Ticonderoga, the history of which comes within the province of the story of Lake George, as its very existence as a fortress growls out of its command of the northern entrance to this lake. By the conquest of Ticonderoga and by thus gaining control of Lake Champlain and its outlet into the St. Lawrence, Pitt hoped to cut Canada in two. The command of this expedition was given to General Abercromby, a heavy and dull man, but with him was associated a young nobleman, Lord Howe, who was to be the real leader. Lord Howe's rivals and military associates pronounced him the * 'noblest Eiiglit^hman of his day" and '^a complete model of military virtue." The Americans had long been Tery Jealous of English officers, who were prone to give themselves airs, and t' eated the former with a condescension which sorely wounded their pride, but they all loved this young nobleman. One of his vir- tues was a power of acconnnodating himself to the shifts of a frontier life, common to Frenchmen but rare among Englishmen. Lord Howe was so eager indeed to learn the conditions of American war that he made a friend of the famous Rogers and joined him on one of his scouts about Lake George, wearing snowshoes, eating Indian meal and sleeping on a bearskin in the woods, that he might learn how frontiersmen marched, ambushed and retreated. In June, 1758, an army of sixteen thousand men arrived at the head of Lake George and encamped on a spot known as Fort Gage. There were nearly ten thousand Americans and over six thousand English regular soldiers, w^ho ruefully regarded themselves as ridiculous figures, for Lord Howe had made them cut off their hair and coattails, wear leather leggings and brown the barrels of their polished guns that these might not be so readily seen in the woods. Each man carried with him thirty pounds of corn meal, and all were astonished to discover that in this way an Eng- lish army could subsist for a month without the aid of a provision train. Officers were allowed no bed but a bearskin and no baggage but one small port- manteau each. How^e even abolished the women camp followers and w^ashed his own linen in a brook, as an example to others to do the same. While the 74 army was encamped at the head of Lake George he one day invited some of the officers to dine in his tent. Here they found bearskins for carpets, logs for seats, a big dish of pork and beans set on the ground for a feast and not the vestige of a plate or knife and fork to be seen. The dismayed Englishmen seated themselves around the one dish and tried to look unconcerned, while Howe took out a pocket knife and fork and began to cut up the meat. "Is it posvsible, gentlemen," he exclaimed, "that you have come on this campaign without providing yourselves with what is necessary!" Whereupon he presented each one of them with a pocket knife and fork in a leather sheath, like his own. Before this, English officers had been in the habit of burdening the baggage train of an army with beds, dishes and delicacies and cumbering the army with men and women servants, that they might live luxuriously. With such a general, for Lord Howe was in fact the general, it is not strange that every- thing progressed more rapidly than on former expe- ditions at Lake George. On the evening of the fourth of July all the stores were loaded in the boats which lined the beach, at the head of the lake, and by sun- rise of the fifth the men were all embarked — the largest army which had ever appeared on Lake George. There were nine hundred bateaux, or flat- bottomed boats, over thirty feet long, and one hun- dred and thirty-five whale boats, loaded to the brim, besides a great many heavy flatboats, which carried the artillery, and two "floating castles," or batteries. The English regular soldiers, in their scarlet coats, 75 were in the center, the Americans on either side. It was a sparkhng midsummer day; flags were flying, brass bands and bagpipes were playing^ bugles blow- ing, and the men were in high spirits, thinking they had never seen so fine an army nor so lovely a sheet of w'ater. For three miles the lake was entirely, as it seemed, covered with boats. When the army en- tered the Narrows it stretched out in lines, six miles long. It w^as late in the afternoon of Saturday when the fleet of boats reached Sabbathday Point and made a halt. There the men ate and rested, and here Lord Howe laid down on a bearskin beside John Stark, the ranger^ afterwards the Revolutionary general, and learned from him all he knew about Ticonderoga and the country around it. ' It was already after midnight, and Sunday morn- ing, when the army embarked once more, and hence the name of the point where these sixteen thousand men rested. Silently and with muffled oars the mighty fleet of boats passed on down the lake, their scarlet uniforms bursting suddenly upon the view of the French advance guard, j^erched on the summit of Rogers' Rock, as the boats came around a point at early sunrise. Lord Howe pushed ahead of the army in a whaleboat with Rogers and some others to reconnoiter the landing place, then known as the "Burnt Camp," and not far from the Baldwin of our day. He found that the French had but a small guard here, and returned to the army to assist it in landing. By twelve o'clock the men were all ashore, the French had retired and Rogers and his rangers were sent ahead to scout and drive away any more of the enemy that might be lurking about. The French burned, ae they retired, the bridge over the stream of the outlet which makes a loop between Lake George and the fort, and were encamped within this loop, near the falls. It was decided to march the English army through the woods, around the loop, to avoid the difficulty of crossing in the face of the enemy. Divided into four columns, the men began their march. Lord Howe, who was only too daring, at their head with a body of rangers under Putnam. The trees were enormous, the woods were cumbered with fallen trunks and the ground was so rough and broken near the falls in the stream of the outlet that the English ranks, when they reached this point, be- came confused. It chanced that the French party which had watched the English landing, from Rogers' Rock, retired behind the mountains by the way of Trout Brook Valley and came out near the stream at the same time that the English advance was floun- dering over the rocks at this place. "Qui etes vous?" cried the French. "Francais!" answered the rangers, who had had lessons of Rogers, but their pronounciation was pro- bably not deceptive, for the veritable French imme- diately opened fire. The very first volley killed the invaluable and gallant young leader. Lord Howe. A panic immediately seized the English, always at a loss in the forests of America. "Entire regiments flung themselves one atop of the oti er," and General Abercromby was near being dragged away by the fugitives. The rangers, however, were not so easily alarmed. They held their ground, fighting cour- ageoush', Rogers, with another body of frontiergineii, and the American regiments of Fitcli and Lyman coming to their assistance. Caught between the two forces, the French fought savagely. Wlien at last they broke many plunged into tiie stream at the falls and were drowned or shot there. But fifty out of three hundred escaped. One hundred and forty-eight were captured; the rest were killed. The English lost only ten killed and six wounded, but among the dead was Lord Howe, the soul of the expedition. The Americans mourned hini deepl}', and afterward>« wdth their own money raised a monument to him in Westminster Abbey, General Abercromby, who had well nigh been run off with by his own men, kept the army in indecision all night in the woods and retired to the landing place on Lake Geoi'ge in the morning. Men were set to rebuild the bridges destroyed by the French, and the English moved forward and occupied the camp within the loop of the stream, which had been occu- pied by the French until late on the day before, at which time Montcalm had decided to retire to the high grounds back of Ticonderoga. This fort, known as Carillon to the French, was built in the usual man- ner of that day of two log walls filled in with earth. On the rocky plateau back of the fort the French hastily threw up a barricade of logs topped with bags of earth and sods. Outside of this they felled a huge abbatis of primeval trees with the branches turned outward and many of them sharpened. They worked hard on their barricade. All they wanted was time, and General Abercromby, by his indecision and his 78 Tetreat to the landing place to make a new start, gave it to them, Montcalm, however, felt that he was in a desperate situation. He had less than four thousand men, he believed that the enemy had twenty or thirty thou- sand, his works could not long withstand artillery, and there was danger that the English might cut him off from Canada by getting between him and Crown Point. Abercromb}^, on the other hand, supposed that Montcalm was six thousand strong and would soon receive large reinforcements. Accordingly he decided not to await a regular siege but hasten to take Ticonderoga by assault. On the eighth of July, after some harmless firing from Indians, who had just arrived under Sir William Johnson, the English came on, and the French dropped their shovels and axes to take up their arms. The English, who approached in three columns, became terribly entangled in the abbatis and all order was lost. The men pushed on, however, but almost all those who approached to within fifteen paces of the works were surely killed, and some hung dead on the sharpened branches of the abbatis. The English retired. The French works could not be taken at the point of the bayonet, they said. Aber- cromby, who was himself well in the rear, ordered them on again, and on they went into the mass of trees, under the terrific triple fire of an enemy of whom they could see nothing but some caps project- ing above the sods of the ramparts. They tried one point, they tried another; they combined to attack the right, the center and the left. To each threaten- 7v> ed point Montcalm, in his shirt sleeves, fof it was hot, ran with reinforcements, and the French shouted: ''Vive le roi! Vive notre gene^-al!" and the bullets whistled. Twenty bateaux were sent down the stream below the falls to get around the fort but it's cannon sunk two of them and the rest retired. Six times the in- domitable courage and the §tupid stubbornness of their general flung the English against the French de- fenses; for six hours they struggled up in face of a murderous fire. Once a French officer in his excite- ment tied a handkerchief to his gun and waved it in defiance. Some of the English, taking this for a sign of surrender, ran forward, holding their muskets above their heads and crying, * 'Quarter!" The French, supposing in their turn that these men wished to surrender, mounted the breastworks to receive them, but an officer convinced them that they were fooled, when they delivered a volley at the English, who thereupon took it all for a bit of French deceit. A Rhode Island man named William Smith managed to get under the very edge of the breastworks, where he contrived to kill several Frenchmen. At last they discovered him, and firing down on him wounded him gravely; but he sprang up nevertheless and brained a Frenchman on the other side of the barricade with his hatchet. An Eng- lish officer who saw this action sent men to bring him off. At five o'clock the English made a determined assault upon the right of the French, hewing their 80 way to the foot of the breastworks, dying Scotclimen in the Highland regiment caUing to their comrades "not to lose a thought upon them but to mind the honor of their country. " Their major, Campell, of Inverawe, who, according to tradition, had been warned of his death at an unknown place named Ticonderoga by the ghost of a murdered cousin whose slayer he unwittingly sheltered, was wounded in the arm and died instead at Fort Edward, rather, it seems to me, of the unskilful surgery of the day than of the injury. Twenty-five Highland officers were killed or wounded in this fierce assault, one of their captains and a few men even mounting the breastworks and gaining the inside, where they were bayoneted. All was in vain. One more effort was made at six o'clock and then the English fell back, the rangers and some other Americans keeping up a distant fire to cover the retreat and the removal of the wounded. The English lost about nineteen hundred, some six hun- dred of whom were killed outright. The French losses were three hundred and seventy-seven. Never had human life and courage been more shamefully thrown away. The English had still abundant forces and all the cannon for a siege, but they were disheartened by their bitter and wasteful defeat and they were with- out a leader. To the astonishment of the French they were soon in full retreat up Lake George, bear- ing with them their sorrowful burden of wounded and their wooden-headed general, and leaving behind them baggage, provisions, everything, even to a num- ber of shoes stuck in the mud of a marsh through 81 wliicli the army hastened. The men were greatly disgusted with Abercromby, and he was afterwards known to his own soldiers as "Mrs. ]NJabby Cromby." PUTNAM'S ADVENTURE. After the Battle of Ticonderoga Abercromby lay at the head of Lake George. He busied his men in rebuilding Fort William Henry and leveling the siege works of Montcalm, on the site of the present village of Caldwell, while detachments of the army w^re sent to other i3oints, where the war was carried on with more vigor. Montcalm, wiio was meanwhile reinforced, lay at Ticonderoga, strengthening and improving the hasty works which had helped hi:n to withstand the determined assault of Abercromby' s army. He also sent large parties of men down South Bay to cut off the English supplies as they were hauled up from Fort Edward. One of these parties succeeded in destroying a large wagon train and kill- ing one hundred and sixteen men, at Halfway Brook, and Abercromby immediately despatched Rogers with seven hundred men down Lake George and across the mountains on the east shore to w^aylay the Frenchmen who had destroyed the wagons. Eogers arrived at South Bay too late to intercept the enemy. He was on his return to Lake George when he was met by messengers from Abercromby with orders to turn back and go in search of a party which had been reported as hovering about Fort Edward. Eogers made his way back to the crumbling ruins of Fort Anne for this purpose, and here he encamped for the night. Though he had forbidden tires, for fear of 82 discovery, he and an English officer who was of the party so far forgot caution as to fire at a mark the following morning before breaking camp, that they might decide a wager. It happened that the five hundred Indians and French, under the leadership of a famous French partisan, named Marin, of whom Eogers was in search, were within earshot of this firing and imme- diately laid a semicircular ambush across the path leading to Fort Edward^ where it ran through a dense thicket which had grown up in the former clearing around Fort Anne. After the wager had been settled Rogers' party took up their march in single file along the narrow path of the overgrown clearing, Major Israel Putnam taking the lead. Just at the approach to the larger woods the Indians fired, and a large Caughnawaga sprang upon Putnam^ whose gun failed him when he snapped it at the fellow's breast. He was captured and the Indian bound him to a tree. The rangers pushed their way up to the point of attack, greatly impeded by the young saplings of the clearing. The fight was an obstinate one Once the rangers fell back and the Indians and French pressed upon them. Again, the French retreated and made a stand farther on. These movements left the unfor- tunate Putnam tied to a tree between two fires. The bullets flew around him, often lodging in the tree to which he was bound, and several cut the sleeves and skirts of his coat. At last the French and Indians gradually fell away, but not until the Caughnawaga had unbound Putnam and taken him along. Rogers remained on the battlefield and buried the dead. He then made litters of the branches of trees and carried the wounded toward Fort Edward, until he was met by a detachment with wagons. Putnam, left meanwhile to the mercy of a brutal and defeated foe, after having been robbed of coat, vest, shoes and stockings by the savages and hit with the muzzle of a gun by a petty French officer, was driven through the woods by his captors, his bare feet bleeding, his back laden with the packs of their wounded and his hands tied together so tightly that they swelled. The torture of his wrists was so great that he begged the Indians to kill him, and a French officer who heard the request untied his hands and removed some of the burdens from his back, while his captor furnished him a pair of moccasins. Before they had completed their march, however, a savage wantonly wounded him on the cheek with a toma- hawk. When night had come the Indians bound Putnam to a stake, and gathering dry wood piled it about him. They set tire to the wood, but a summer shower put out the flames. The shower soon passed and the wood was lighted again. The Indians danced and yelled around their victim as the flames rose and he began to writhe with the torture of the fire. It was at this moment that the French leader, Marin, rushed through the fiendish crowd, and scattering the burning brushwood, cut Putnam loose from the stake, storming the while at the Indians for their cruelty. He then turned Putnam over to his savage master, who it seems was not unwilling to preserve his prisoner. When he found that Putnam was unable to eat hard bread on account of his wounded cheek 84 he moistened some for him. The captive was secured for the night in a common Indian fashion, by the tying of his legs and arms, as he lay on the ground, to young saplings, and laying slender poles across his body, on the ends of which some Indians slept that they might be awakened by his least movement. As he lay thus he smiled to think of his ridiculous plight. The next day he was led to Ticonderoga, the Indians showing on the way by menacing gestures how great was their disappointment at having missed their night's entertainment. From Ticonderoga he was removed to Canada, where he was kindly treated and presently exchanged. LAST SCENES OF THE FRENCH WAR ABOUT LAKE GEORGE. In spite of Montcalm's victory at Ticonderoga it was but a few days later that he began to foresee the necessity of abandoning this important post. Canada was by this time in great distress; her people were suffering for food, she was governed by a ring of speculators who were amassing fortunes out of her, and France was no longer able to come to her aid, one of her ministers saying that when the house was on fire it was impossible to think of the stable. Though Pitt's schemes had failed at Ticonderoga, they suc- ceeded on Lake Ontario, where the taking of Fort Frontenac cut off Canada's connection with her in- land posts. The capture of Louisburg meanwhile had gained the control of the mouth of the St. Law- rence, and the fall of Fort DuQuesne lost France the Ohio valley. The hand of the great English minister 85 was felt everywhere except at Lake George, where Lord Howe was dead and "Mrs. Nabby Cromby" ruled supreme. The final great struggle came in 1759, when General Wolfe advanced against Quebec. To co-operate with him from the rear eleven thousand men gathered at Lake George under Gen(iral Amherst, who was to make a descent into Canada by way of Lake George, Lake Champlain and the St. Lawrence. General Amherst was a new style of commander to these regions — sl famous fort builder. Wherever he went forts were soon broadcast — no frontier log walls, but fine, expensive stone affairs. Ignoring the one which Abercromby had begun the year before on the site of Fort William Henry, Amherst laid out an extensive work, named Fort George, on the spot where the former entrenched camp had stood. Only one bas- tion of this massive affair w^as ever finished. Am- herst's fort building energies were not alone devoted to this work, but posts were erected at intervals on the road between Lake George and Fort Edward, particularly at Halfway Brook, w hile the woods were cut for a wide distance along this track that wagon trains might no longer be in danger of Indian sur- prises. The army at Lake George was in 1759 com- posed half of English regular troops and half of Americans. The men were drilled in firing by platoons and practised in firing at marks and in forest warfare; they cut marsh hay for hospital beds, scouted, made spruce beer to ward off the scurvy, amused themselves with fishing and swimming and 86 were marched to the lake "every fair day" to wash their faces and hands. It was the twenty-first of July when Amherst's men gathered together in boats on the beach at the head of Lake George and embarked for Ticonderoga. Once more a noble army covered the waters of the lake and moved through its length, to the sound of martial music. At night at the lower end of the lake this fleet of boats was struck by a summer gale but weathered it safely and landed next morning, after driving back the French at the landing place. The French at Ticonderoga were commanded now by an officer named Burlamaque. He had almost as many men as had Montcalm the year before, when Aber- cromby was routed, but he had orders to abandon the forts on Lake Champlain when the English should apiDear and retire to an island in the Richelieu river, where he could the more easily defend Mon- treal, for it was seen that the branches must be abandoned since the heart of the colony was at stake. For fear that the English might suspect his plans and cut off his retreat Burlamaque busily strengthened the works of Ticonderoga as though he meant to make a determined defense. The barricade which Abercromby's men had so vainly stormed the year before was now abandoned, though it was more strongly built of earth and logs, and the English en- camped under its very edge for shelter from the can- non of the fort. The first night after the arrival of the latter Burlamaque secretly retired from Ticon- deroga, leaving an officer named Hebecourt with 87 four hundred men to defend the works a while longer and detain the English. General Amherst began a regular siege in a manner which would probably have reduced this post the year before. For four days the garrison kept up a steady cannonade upon the besieging army until Amherst's batteries were finally erected and ready to open fire the next day. It was then that at ten o'clock at night three deserters came running into the English camp with news that Hebecourt and the garrison were making off in boats, having left a slow match burning in the powder magazines of the fort. Loth to see a fort destroyed, Amherst offered a hun- dred guineas to the one of these men who would lead the way to the match, that it might be cut, but this was beyond the courage of a deserter, and an hour later there was a tremendous explosion. One bastion only of the fort was blown up. The barracks, how- ever, were burned, and while there still remained danger of more explosions, a sergeant risked his life to haul down the French flag still flying on the ram- parts of Ticonderoga. Shortly afterward the French abandoned and des- troyed Crown Point, on the approach of Amherst, and retired to Isle-aux-Noix, in the Richelieu River, where they fortified themselves "to the teeth." As the French had several vessels on Lake Champlain Amherst was obliged to spend the summer and fall waiting for the building of a small fleet, of boards made at a primitive sawmill at Ticonderoga, w^hich often broke down under the strain. In this way the warm season was wasted and Wolfe took Quebec 88 without Amherst's aid, though the latter general had the satisfaction of building a fine new fort at Crown Point. The following year, 1760, Brigadier General Havi- land descended Lake George on his way to aid in the final conquest of the remnant of Canada which still held out. He reached Montreal by way of Lake Champlain about the same time that armies from the upper and lower St. Lawrence did, and combined with them to bring about the fall of this town, with which the conquest of Canada was complete, and Lake George slumbered once more in solitude, until the breaking out of the war of the Revolution. ETHAN ALLEN AT TICONDEROGA. For fifteen years Ticonderoga's guns slept, its gar- rison of forty-eight men amusing themselves as best they might and its parade a play ground for soldiers' children and the sons of one or two frontier farmers who had invaded this country. With the fall of Can- ada, indeed, this great water route had lost its strat- egic value, but with the first breaking out of the Revolutionary war its possession became once more of vast importance. There were men in New Eng- land who immediately saw this and the necessity for quick action to forestall the English government; and thus it came about that one night in the May of 1775 Ethan Allen with two hundred and thirty Green Mountain boys arrived opposite Ticonderoga. Boats were scarce but Allen secured enough to set over himself and eighty-three men, together with a farmer's boy who knew the way to the wicket gate of 89 the fort, which stood open. As morning was fast approaching and all depended on a surprise Allen did not wait for the return of the boats with the remain- der, of the men, but after haranguing those he had and appealing to their pride in the reputation of the Green Mountain boys for dash, he marched them to the wicker gate, where the sentinel snapped his gun at him and then ran within the fort to hide under a bomb proof. The Green Mountain boys w^ere not slow in following him and were soon forming on the parade within the fort, facing the barracks on either side and giving three huzzas to rouse the sleeping men. Allen slashed at one of the sentries who made a pass at one of his officers and then forced him to lead the way to the commandant's sleeping room, where he thundered at the door of Captain Delaplace, for this was his name, threatening to sacrifice the whole garrison if he did not immediately appear. The Captain hastened to comply, his breeches in his hands. "Deliver me this fort, instantly," said Allen. "By what authority do you demand it?" asked Delaplace. * 'In the name of the great Jehovah and the Conti- nental Congress!" replied Ethan Allen, who is said to have had about as much respect for the one author- ity as the British commandant had for the other. Allen enforced his commands by holding a drawn sword over the Captain's head, and having by this time beaten down the doors of the other barracks the fort was soon in the hands of the Green Mountain boys, w^ho, when their comrades had arrived from 90 across the water, '^'tossed around the flowing bowl,'^ to signalize their conquest. The spoils were one hun- dred and twenty cannon, some swivels and mortars^ tons of musket ballSy flints, shells, small arms,, pow- der, flour, pork, beans, peas and materials for boat building. By the orders of Congress the captured cannon and stores were removed to the head of Lake George for safe keeping, as Congress declared, until "the restoration of harmony," which in that early stage of the war was much talked about between England and her colonies As a matter of fact many of these cannon afterwards figured in the siege of Boston, for they were removed from Lake George the next winter on fifty sledges, drawn by eighty yoke of oxen, and reached Boston in time to make it possi- ble for Washington to drive the English army out of that city, BENJAMIN FRANKLIN ON LAKE GEORGE. In the outset of the Revolutionary War the Ameri- cans thought to carry everything by dash, and the fall of Ticonderoga was followed by a hasty invasion of Canada, which in the spring of 1776 bade fair to fail because of the smallpox, poverty and the ill-will of the Canadians, tired of the exactions of invaders. Congress sent commissioners to Canada to try to un- ravel their army's entangled affairs. They were Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Chase and Charles Car- roll, of CarroUton. They ascended the Hudson in a sloop and were four days making the journey. At Albany they were entertained by General Schuy- ler, his wife and two lively, black-eyed daughters, Betsey and Peggy, all of whom accompanied the gen- 91 tlemen in a springless wagon to their country home at Saratoga. Here they waited a week for the ice in Lake George to show signs of breaking up, Frankhn [buffering greatly from tlie fatigue of the journey. On the sixteenth of April the commissioners took their way to Lake George. Snow was still on the ground and when after two days of hard riding they reached the head of the lake they found the ice still floating about in the water in large cakes. General Schuyler had gone before them to prepare a boat, and he had a bateau, thirty-six feet long, eight wide and one foot deep, fitted up with a sail and awning made of blankets. This f»rimitive craft set sail on Lake George at one o'clock on April the nineteenth, 1776. She made four miles and then the pa.-sengers went ashore and made tea. It took thirty-six hours to descend the lake in the boat of the blanket sail, battered about as she was by cakes of floating ice, Carroll indulging by the way in regrets that it was too early in the season to catch the famous fish of these waters. The bateau was placed on wheels and drawn across the neck of land between Lake George and Lake Champlain by six yoke of oxen. The commissioners reached Canada in the course of time and found the case of the army hopeless in case of the approach of an English army. Franklin, suffering from the hard- ships of the journey and the gout, returned through Lake George in the boat of the blanket sail, junketing by the way on land at various points, and journeyed down the Hudson, by wagon, his bones well-nigh broken on the stony and gullied road he traversed, such being the perils of American travel in 1776. 02 BURGOYNE \N CONTROL OF LAKE GEORGE. Once more a great army de cended through the Champlain valley, but this lime it was an English instead of a French — Englishmen ranged against those Americans by whose side they had fought seventeen years before, and bent upon cutting the rebellious colonies in two by way of the Hudson Val- ley. In the summer of 1777 General Burgoyne with an army of ten thousand men sailed up Lake Cham- plain and captured Ticonderoga without a blow by erecting a battery on a mountain overlooking its works. The Americans had been to much pains to strengthen this fort and great was their disappoint- ment at its loss. The fall of Ticonderoga induced them to abandon Fort George, for if the former work could be overlooked by cannon the latter could much more easily be taken in the same way. The useless- ness of these fortifications of the French struggle^ in the War of Independence, shows how great had been the improvement in the science of war in the few years that had intervened. General Schuyler was unjustly blamed for the abandonment of these two posts and was obliged to defend himself to General AVashingion, in the Fort George matter, by explain- ing that this post was but a bastion of an unfinished fort, in which was but one barrack, capable of hold- ing not more thaii thirty or forty men. There was no cistern and no picket to keep the enemy from overrunning the wall. It was commanded by the old Fort William Henry site, ''within point blank shot," and live hundred men might have been, he said, be- tween "this extremely defensible fortress" and the lake without being discovered by its garrison. After the chase of the Ticonderoga garrison the English army assembled at okeenesborough, as Whitehall was then called, at the head of Lake Champlain, and Burgoyne chose to march from this place to Fort Edward instead of returning to Ticon- deroga to take the easier route through Lake George and by way of the old military road of the French war. The Skeenesborough route, which involved much the inost land travel, was made immensely more difficult by General Schuyler, who had caused ditches to be dug, bridges to be broken and trees to be felled across what road then existed. Besides re- moving these obstacles, Burgoyne was obliged to build more than forty bridges across streams and marshes, one of which was more than two miles long. This expensive road building detained the army so long as to give the Americans time to recover from their first disheartenment and gather their forces for a resistance. The English general was afterward blamed for choosing the Fort Anne route and foolishly made the feeble excuse^ that Fort George would have detained him too long. It has been said that Major Skeene, the Tory founder of Whitehall, persuaded his friend, Burgoyne, to take this route that a good road might be built between his town and Fort Ed- ward. However that may be, Lake George afterwards became the route for the forwarding of stores, and portions of Burgoyne' s army went south this way. The English early occupied the abandoned Fort George, but they thought it so indefensible that a 94 garrison was also placed on Diamond Island, to afford protection to the numbers of boats which were now daily plying up and down the waters of Lake George. Burgoyne did not imitate the spartan example of Lord Howe, for his army was cumbered by the trans- portation of various luxuries for the use of the oflSc- ers, and every night, even up to the very eve of final misfortune, he dined heavily in his tent, leaving mounds of wine bottles at his camping places. All seemed more like a pleasure excursion than an in- vasion, and while the English were yet making triumphant though slow progress southward two ladies made their way through Lake George to join their husbands, who were officers in the English army. They were the first women to see this lake, except a few wives of common soldiers and camp followers. Lady Harriet Ackland, "a delicate little piece of quality," went through here in search of her husband, who had been wounded near Ticonderoga. Her story is a romantic one. Major Ackland was again wounded, and captured as well, in the Battle of Saratoga. Lady Ackland made the perilous journey to the American camp one rainy night, under the protection of an English chaplain, that she might nurse her husband. The Major recovered but after- ward fell in a duel in England. Lady Ackland lost her mind for some time after his death, though he was a rude, drinking man, but she finally recovered and married the chaplain who had had the devotion to accompany her on that perilous expedition in the rain to the American army, after the Battle of Sara- toga. Another lady to make the journey up Lake George, during this siiuuiier, was the Baroness de Riedesel, wife of the German general of that name in Bur- goyne's arm\\ She had three little children with her, one a young baby, and two maids. She had come all the way from Germany alone, in s^:;ite of the oppo- sition of her family, that she might be with her hus- band and be assured from day to day of his safety. After a tedious journey she had reached the army in Canada but a few days before its departure and had begged to be allow^ed to follow^ him, promising to bear everything and make no complaints. He refused to take her, but some time later when Lady Ackland joined the army he sent an officer after her and she and her family made the journey through Lake Champlain and Lake George and reached the English camp at Fort Edward, shortly before communication was cut off betW'Cen the army and Lake George. She was perfectly happy to dine with her husband in a barn and lodg? in an}- settler's house that might be found. She traveled in a calash which had been brought from Canada for this purpose. When mis- fortune befcl the British army she retreated to a cel- lar with Ler children, where she was crov/ded in with the wounded and dying, and finally v.hen the capitulation took place drove into the American camp, trembling at the ordeal, but only to be greeted with tears by the kind General Schuyler, who took her children in his arms and kissed them. He entertain- ed them all in his own home in Albany. This noble German lady was long a prisoner in America, where two more of her children were born, one of w^hich she named America and the other Canada. Burgoyne 96 "did not wish to build posts along the Hudson to pro- tect his communications with Lake George, choosing rather to wait at Fort Edward until enough supplies had been brought through this lake to last the army for a month and then abandon his comnmnications and march on for Albany. THE BATTLE OF DIAMOND ISLAND. While Burgoyne w^as on his march to Albany an adventurous American officer, Colonel Brown, sur- prised Ticonderoga on the tenth of September. He caj)tured two hundred and ninety-three men of the English regiment at the landing place at the lower end of the lake, besides several cannon, a sloop and two hundred bateaux, at the same time releasing one hundred American prisoners whom he found in cap- tivity there. He summoned the fort to surrender but had no means of forcing it to do so, so he fitted out instead a fleet of twenty sail, of the captured boats, three only of which w^ere armed, the largest vessel carrying only three cannon. These boats he manned with about four hundred and twenty men, among whom were the recaptured Americans, and sailed against Diamond Island. It must at best have been a primitive-looking fleet, with its one sloop and the awkward flat-bottomed bateaux, fitted perhaps with the blanket sails which prevailed on Lake George in early days. Brown's plan was to make the distance in one night and so surprise the garrison; but a heavy storm came on and forced him to anchor at Sabbathday Point at midnight of the twenty-second of September. Here he captured a small boat in w^hich was a man named Ferry, a sutler, recently de- 97 f-erted from the American army, who, however, es- caped later in the niglit and warned Captain Aubrey, commanding at Diamond Island, of his danger. The next day the motley fleet of Brown ascended the lake as far as Fourteen Mile Island and anchored again on account of high winds. The following morning, the twenty-fourth of September, Brown advanced to the attack of Diamond Island. The three armed boats attacked the north end of the island and the others parted to the right and left to try if at any point a landing might be made. The English fired first and Brown returned their fire "in good earnest." The enemy were well entrenched and had many well- mounted cannon. Brown made a bold attack, giving them as hot a fire as he could. The battle lasted for an hour and a half and until Brown was forced to abandon one of his boats and tow off his sloop, which was hulled. The English sent gunboats in pursuit of him, but he made good his retreat into Dunham's Bay, where he burned his boats and escaped through the woods, leaving his wounded in charge of the inhabitants of the neighboring country whom he had rescued from their imprisonment at Ticonderoga. This gallant little adventure was so soon followed by the surrender of Burgoyne's whole army at Sara- toga that it has been well-nigh forgotten in history. With the fall of Burgoyne, which discouraged the English from venturing far from the sea coast and a supporting fleet, and secured the French Alliance for the United States, all war on Lake George ended. Fort George and Fort Ticonderoga fell into ruins, while Diamond Island, dug over for its crystals, was 98 forgotten as a fortification, and people wondered when, not many years since, a brass cannon was found imbedded there. EARLY VISITORS AT LAKE GEORGE. AVashington was the father of Lake George traveL In the summer of 1783, while he was waiting for tlie evacuation of New York, before the final disbanding of his army, he came north, made the journey through Lake George, and after visiting Ticonderoga and Crown Point reasc.nded the lake on his return. The only conveyance of those days on the lake was the flat-bottomed bateau, with blanket sail, and no doubt Washington landed at various points and islands on the lake to cook and eat his meals. Soon after the Revolution the shores of Lake George were invaded by settlers, who cleared a few farms on its shores and spent much time in the deer hunt, one man being known to kill as many as thirty deer a year in its waters. The first hotel keeper appeared in the person of a man named Verner, who opened a tavern at the head of Lake George, and in 1801 the first pleasure party set forth on these waters, in a bateau with an awning of painted canvass, propelled by oars and Fails, built by General Schuyler at Schen- ectady, in which he and his family descended Lake George, Lake Champlain, the Richelieu and the St. Lawrence as far as Quebec, and on their return left their leisurely craft at the head of Lake George for the use of future travelers. It was used the next year by Timothy Dwight, the President of Yale College, who traveled through Lake George, admiring at the 99 close of day the shadows of the western mountains "floatir.g slowly over the bosom of the lake and then softly ascending the mountains on the east," giving the impression of one range of mountains climbing another. This traveler trembled for the mild-eyed deer which he saw chased through the waters and predicted in the stilted English of his day that here "the villas of opulence and refinement" would one day add "the elegancies of art to the beauty and majesty of nature." The site of Fort William Henry and a tract of ground around it known as the Garrison Ground were granted by the state to Columbia and Union colleges and sold by these institutions early in the century to William Caldwell, who was buying up large bodies of land on Lake George, to form a sort of American lordship, or manor. Caldwell w^as an Irishman and had come to America a poor man. He laid the foundation of his fortune in a store in Albany, in which his wife in early days is said to have tended the counter. He came in time to own a group of mills in which all sorts of articles, from hair powder to chocolate, were prepared. He founded the Village of Caldwell, and under the stimulus of his money and activity twenty smart houses soon stood here beside the courthouse and church which he had built and the Mansion House in which he lived. Caldwell built a tea house on Tea Island, and here he and his visitors used often to gather to drink tea. When President Dwight re- turned to Lake George in 1811 he was greatly sur- prised to find that "a beautiful village" had sprung 100 lip at its head and was fain to think that the ''villas of opulence and hixury" were already at hand. And now visitors began to appear in ever-increas- ing numbers on these long-hidden waters. In 1825 the Duke of S'axe-Weimar found the steamboat Moun- taineer plying on the lake and an Indian family on Diamond Island selling the crystals in which it abounded. Two years later Basil Hall found Lake George so lovely that even Americans could not exag- gerate in praising it. Another traveler pronounced the Lake House of that day to be "a great and charm- ingly situated hotel," while still another, a home- sick Scotchman, indulged in sentiment over brick found in the ruins of Fort George, which he was cer- tain were of British make since they were blue at heart, not unlike himself. Among these early visit- ors to Lake George a very old lady remembers to have seen Aaron Burr walking through the streets of Caldwell to the postoffice in the old stone store, still in good preservation. And now at last Lake George was no longer to be the haunt of bloodthirsty braves; no more was it the arena of a fierce strife between two great nations en- gaged in a death struggle for the control of a conti- nent. Peaceful pleasure parties only sought its waters and summer homes grew up on its shores. But those who seek it for pleasure, health and rear may well give a thought to the honest fellows who left its earth sown with their bones, who dyed its waters witli their blood and Vv^ho enriched its natural beauties with the memories of their brave deeds. 101 POINTS OF HISTORIC INTEREST ON AND ABOUT LAKE GEORGE. The Site of the Battle of Lake George, 1755, lies on some partially improved property north of the Fort George Eoad, and across the raih-oad from about the middle of the beach, at the head of Lake George. Entrenchments may still be traced in the woods on this tract of land, and the Military Spring under the edge of a rise of ground here is memorable as having been used by the English army when encamped there. In running a new road north of this site many bones were found, and baking ovens built of stone and brick were unearthed, which have since been well-nigh destroyed at the hands of vandal relic hun- ters. A bill has been presented to the state legisla- ture by the Trustees of Scenic and Historic Objects and Places, in co-operation with the Caldwell Village Improvement xissociation, for the preservation of this battle site as a state park, and the Society of Colonial Wars pro^Doses to erect a monument on this memorable ground. Fort William Henry, located in the easternmost por- tion of the grounds of the hotel of the same name. The earthworks remain intact and the form of the fortifications may distinctly be traced. They are covered with a noble growth of pines which have sprung up since the close of the last French war, in 1760. Fort George, situated on a rocky hill overlooking the railroad where it debouches on the beach at Lake George, is the site of the ejitrenched camp occupied by the main body of the garrison of Fort William 102 Henry, during the siege, and of the massacre of Lake George. Today the remains of Fort Greorge, built by Amherst and afterwards occupied in the War of the Revolution by a detachment of Burgoyne's arjny,may ba found on the spot. An Old Military Dock, from which both Abercromby's and Amherst's armies en:ibarked on their expeditions against Ticonderoga, still exists under water on the beach at the liead of Lake George. Near the same spot the remains of a sunken sloop m.ay also be seen — a relic, no doubt, of one of the fleets of the various armies which traversed Lake George. Fort Cage, lying between Luzerne and the Plank Road, was an outpost of the encampment of Aber^ cromby's army. Montcalm's Camp was located on the grounds of the old Caldwell Mansion House, now the property of Mr. James Hayden, and on those across the road, known as the Golf Ground. The Temporary Camp occupied by the garrison of Fort William Henry was located on the high ground back of the Catholic Church. The Fort William Henry Farm occupied the site of the present hotel, its grounds and those of the houses across the Plank Road. In digging the cellar of Dr. Cromwell's cottage,now owned by Mr. P^lwyn Seelye, the remains of sixteen bodies were unearthed, and the bones were reinterred under the bay window of the cottage. Artillery Cove is the spot where INIontcalm landed his cannon for the siege of Fort William Henry, at night, under cover of the darkness. The Landing of Montcalm's Army took place in the 103 small bay north of the two points belonging to Mr. Cramer. From this point Montcahn's anny marched in three columns to besiege Foit William Henry. Bolton was Montcalm's rendezvous for his forces on •coming from the north to invest Fort AViUiam Henry, a triangle of lire being built on the mountain side liere b}^ the land forces, as a signal to those on the watei". At this spot the whole army ate and rested. Diamond Island. Fortified by Burgoyne in the War 'of the Revolution for the protection of the stores which he brought through Lake George for the sup- port of his army. Here a sharp battle was fought between Captain Aubrey, in command of the island, and Colonel Brown, in a fleet of boats captured from the English at the foot of the lake and manned by Americans. A brass cannon has been seen imbedded in the lake bottom north of this ishmd. Dunham's Bay, in pre-glacial times the outlet of one of the two streams which liowe:! through the Valley of Lake George and took their rise in the Narrows. Here Brown destroyed his boats after his defeat at Diamond Island and made his escape by land. The remains of old boats may be seen in the water here, which, it has been conjectured, were thos3 of the plucky Brown. Sabbathday Point, so called for the reason that tlie army of Abercroniby landed here Saturday night ar.d left during the small hours of Sunday morning to advance against Ticonderoga. During the last Frencii war and the Revolution several skirmishes were fought at this point. Rogers' Rock. Behind this mountain the famous scout, Rogei's, fought a gallant little battle with an overpowering force of Indians and French,arid accord- ing to tradition afterwards made the Indians believe by stratagem that he had slid down the rock and so escaped pursuit. From Roger.-^' Rock the advance 104 guard of the French army at Ticonderoga kept a look- out at the time Abercromby moved through Lake George to the attack of that post. The Falls of Ticonderoga. Here Lord Howe fell, on the west bank of the stream, near wlKjre Trout Brook enters it. Ticonderoga, occupied first by Dieskau in his advance against the English, was for some years the advance post of the French and the site of the battle of Ticon- deroga. It was finall}^ abandoned and partly destroy- ed by the French when Amherst laid siege to it. At the outset of the Revolutionary war it was captured by Ethan Allen and later fell into the hands of Gen. Burgoyne when he invaded New York State. Some interesting ruins still remain at this point and here a monument is likely soon to be erected by the Society of Colonial Wars. ■?^. r. AsjtABl-E CHA5J!¥! 106 AUSABLE CHASM. One of the wonders of America is Ausable Chasni;, an illustration of which is given on the preceding page. This grand and beautiful gorge is cut in solid rock by the impetious course of the Ausable River, on its way from the Adirondacks to Lake Champlain, The length of the Chasm is nearly two miles; in some places it is fifty feet wide, in others it is compressen to only ten, and from ninety to two hundred feet deep, with sharp turnp^ lateral fissures, imn:iense amphitheatres and chambers. The scenery is grand beyond description. Situated amid noble surround- ings, the Adirondacks on the one hand, the Green ^Mountains on the other and Lake Champlain in the near distance, with fine fishing, drives and walks at hand, it is a most attractiye summer resort. The Lake View Hou;^ e which stands near the Chasm has recently been bought by a syndicate of capitalists,, together with the great wonder itself, and the whole is conducted by Mr. W. H. Tracy,as general manager. The owners have made the whole of this wild gorge accessible by means of foot bridges, stairways, galler- ies and boats. The visitor is admitted to the chasm through a building known as the Lodge and descends into it by means of a stairway. He visits in turn Rainbow Falls, (70 feet,) Horshoe Falls, Pulpit Rock, Split Rock, the Devil's Oven, Hell Gate and the Devil's Punch Bowl. Jacob's Ladder soon afterward leads the visitor's mind in a more heavenly direction and is followed by Mystic Gorge, Cape Eternity, Smuggler's Pass Ac^ W. B, TEAR5E, r- m z in FINE HARNESS AND HORSE GOODS, Awningfs, Canopies. Tents. Sails, Steamer Curtains & Cusheons. V A (XT8TER OF CHARISIING *!§► *^' ""Mimmer Homes? tS)Minnimer iniomest ^'* i4f Joshua's Rock, on Lake George, *•§► # # ^|j Where stand the stone library aiul cottage of .^ ^ Dr. Edward Egglestoii, the novelist and histor- '^ ^1* ian, the cottages of George Car y Eggleston, «l^ S\t editor of tlie New York Wo'ld^^ Harvey N. ^j^ ^, Looinis, of Ciiicago, Colonel A. G. Brown, of ^ ^'* Brooklvn, W. H. Townsend, of New York, *'^ <|l» Mrs. J. H Havens, of Brooklyn, Miss Ada M. ♦!§► ^|i Gleason^ of New York, George W> Ferris, of ,|^ £ Glens Falls, and Elwyn Seelye, owner of 100 ^ *£'* acres of the snrronnding noble woods and*'^ <^|» ravines, with a mile of lake frontage. None «i^ ^.^ but desirable neighbors are adujitled to these ^.^ f. grounds, wheie may be had as much seclusion ^ t;iir Work, Veiieei-(Hl Do is. Haidwocl i-'ini-li. 6 AND 8 SUMNER PLACE. GLENS FALLS, N. Y. DENTiSTRY. S.i. BOWMAN, D.D.S. Opem House Block, GLENS FALLS, = N. Y. All Branches of Dentistry Executed in my Office. Any of all Ancesthetics Admin- istered in Extraction. Rochester Clothing Co. ESTABLISHED 1884. NOW LOCATED AT 28 WARREN ST., QLENS FALLS. OPPOSITE p. O. . Fine Clothing a Specialty! FOK MAN, YOUTH OK BOY. Also a Full and Complete Line of Samples Made to Measure, $\<,io$^y^ A hvays the Latest IStyles ill Hats, Caps t^ Furnishings. TRUNKS AND BAGS. IMITATED BY ALL. EQUALLED BY NONE. REUBEN N. PECK, DEALER IN IVrfinnery. Faney Aiticles. Lamps, Garden Seeds &c , NO. 8 WARREN ST. QLENS FALLS. EstabMshed Crittenden & Cowles, INTERIOR DECORATORS, Art WaM=PsiperI BOOKSELLERS, AND ART EMBROIDERY, NO. 122 GLEN ST.. GLENS FALLS, N. Y. Charles H. Carson, ■^'"^^E INSURANCE Investment Securities. NO 1 R.DGE ST QLENS FALLS aiyOO Company SANDY HILL, N. Y., HEADQUARTERS FOR Lumber, Lath, Shingles, Sash, Doors, Blinds ! ""'^.'n'd'sof building MATERIAL!! Goods Shipped Promptly to Caldwell or any Point on Lake George. We Make a Specialty of All Kinds of Cottage Trimmings. CLOTHER & MYERS, \TORS AND WJ ti T\ I DEALERS ,N y^ ^\\ Paper! DECORATORS AND Paint, Oil, Varnish and Paint Supplies. Cottage and Hotel Work a Specialty. Estimates Furnished on all kinds of Decorations. 132 WARREN ST., GPP. P. O. GLEm FALLS, ■ NEW YORK. -A Failur©- TO VISIT OUR ELEGANT NEW ESTABLISHMENT Would be a Great Mistake. Wallace & Go's Chocolates and Bonbons Are Delicious. We Sell Them. Our PRESCRIPTION DEPARTMENT is complete in every detail and in charge of competent men. FERRIS &VIELE, Druggists, 124 GLEN STREET, GLENS FALLS. LAKE GEORGE. SEASON 1896. Green Island, Bolton, on Lake George, Warren County, N. Y. REGULAR OPENING JUNE 23d. Parties coining to Sagamore from June 1st to 23d taken at Reduced Rates. Lake George, with its crystal waters, island gems, rugged mountains and forests can be best seen in this immediate vicinity. Terms and Circulars Sent on Application. The New Hot;! will open June 2?d. The house has all modern conveniences, such as electric lights, elevator, private baths, ladies' private writing rooms and parlors, gentlemen's writing rooms and parlors, bowling all&v, billiard rooms, etc. The Sagamore can be reached by the New York Central & Hudson; River and West Shore railroads, the steamers of the People's Line from New York to Albany, or the Citizens' Line from New York to Troy, thence by the Delaware & Hudson to Lake George. Alighting at Caldwell the tourist steps aboard the "Horicon" or "Ticonderoga " and is brought to the steamboat deck in front of the hotel. Green Island is located between Northwest Bay and Bolton. The island comprises about seventy acres, is handsomely laid out in wind- ing forest walks and drives, rustic seats and beautiful summ :r houses. A board walk leads to the narihern terminus of the island Beautiful drives and picturesque mountain walks on main land. The best of protection against fire. A complete livery supplied with safe horses and tally-ho coaches. Telegraph and Postoffice in the Hotel. M. O. BROWN, = = = Lessee and Proprietor. NELSON LaSALLE, MANUFACTURER OF Fiini(e Carriages 5%!/ Business Wagons, Etc., 36 GLEN STREET, Opposite Dix's Foundry. OL£i\/S FALLS, N. Y. SPECIAL ATTENTION to REPAIRING Best Place to Buy Millinery Is Mrs. Mason's Store, Glens Falls, N. Y. Headquarters for Hair Goods. Every- thing for Infants' Wear. Ladies' Wraps &c. . General Agency for Silver Cream. MRS. H. W. MASON. 125 GLEN STREET. ESTABLISHED 1860. ALWAYS UP TO DATE -^GEO. H. BASSINGER,,*^ Watchmaker and Jeweler, Rockwell House Block. GLENS FALLS, N. K A Store Full of Goods Suitable for Gifts in Gold, Sterling Silver and Diamond Jewelry! t have the best workmen for Fine Watches, Jewelry, Spectacles, Eye Glasses &c. Repairing with special dispatch. Attention to Details and the needs of our customers is ojr first thought. C. N. HITCHCOCK & CO., Wholesale & Retail Tobacconists hid Manufacturers of Fine Cigars. DEALERS IN Pipes and All Kinds of Smokers' Articles! Prices and Quality of all Goods Guaranteed to be Satisfactory. 115 GLEN AND 4 RIDGE STREET, GLENS FALLS, N. Y., ^lothing ! (Qiothing ^., ^ AVliei) in need of First-C'lasg, Up-to-Date Clotliing and MEN'S FURNISHINGS, don't forget to visit the CLOTHING PALACE of Coolidg'e(^ Beotley New Store, New Goods and the Very Latest Styles, at tlie Most Popular Prices. No. 126 Glen Street, Glens Falls, N. Y. COOLIDGE & BENTLEY. J. E. Sawyer & Co. 88 GLEN ST., GLENS FALLS, — Always Carry in Stock a Large Assortment of — Light, Surrey, Express, Coach, Farm and Heavy Team Harness Parts, Kiding Saddles and Bridles, Horse Sheets, Suits and Fly Nets, Lap Robes and Dusters. Full Line of Saddlery and Carriage Makers' Supplies. Bar Iron and Steel a Specialty. PRICES ALWAYS THE LOWEST. J. E. Sawyer & Co, Prospect Mountain ! 2,000 FEET ABOVE LAKE GEORGE. GRANDEST VIEW IN AMERICA I Embracingf the Adirondacks, Green, White and Catskill Mountains. Berkshire Hills and 30 Miles of Lake George. Reached by the Otis Inclined Cable Ry. From the Village of Caldwell, making the Ascent in Ten Minutes Cars leave the foot of the mountain every 50 minutes from 9 a. m. t > 7 p. m. Special trips at other hours on application to Superintend- ent. Stages will be in waiting at D. & H. Station and Steamboat Landing to carry passengers to foot of mountain. Lunch & Refreshments at Summit Casino Grand Pavillion for Picnic Parties, Bowling Alley, Electric Lights, Beautiful Walks. Woods and Sunsets. gi^Tickets may hj purchased at Casino for Dinners at tlie Lake Hou.^e, including return trip to top of mountain These ticket.^ will be sold at Summit onlv. SPECIAL ENTERTAINMENTS For Moonlight Evenings will be Advertised durim^ the Season. ROUND-TRIP TICKETS, - - 50 CENTS L. P. JUVET, GLENS FALLS, N. Y. Diamonds, Jewelry, Spoons! EYE SPECIALIST. EXAMINATIONS FREE. Qlees Falls Lime ! Anal3^sis by Prof. J. H. Appleton, of Brown Univ'ty; Water and Carbonic Acid — not an impurity, . . 1.20 Iron and Allumina 1.70 Magnesia 64 Lime, 96.46 100.00 The following are the average breakings for twelve months of "IRON -CLAD PORTLAND" CEMENT, manufactured by the GLENS FALLS PORTLAND CEMENT CO., as shown by Wm. W. Maclay, C. E.: Tensile Strength in lbs. per sq. Inch. I Day 2 Days 7 Days 29 Days 6 Mos. i Yr. Neat Cement . . 390 550 650 800 996 1080 X part cement o ^ ^ a parts sand ^5o 200 330 418 611 611 Coolidge & Wait, " - -- i^r wrvrmiM^w *^ r t ma 0.9 GLEWS FALLS. N. Y. HF Pf nVn Up=to=the Times • 1^9 i i^\j 11/9 Jeweler. Silver Novelties for Favors. Cor. Warren & Ridge Sts. GLENS FALLS, N. Y. I he Lake House, Lake George. N, Y. ONE OF THE FINEST SUMMER RE^ SORTS IN THE ADIRONDACKS, Seven Fine Cottages of Different Sizes to Rent for the Summer Season, from June ist to October ist. Send tor circular giving a full description of liotel and cottages. W. W. BROWN, - - Lessee and Proprietor. WEST-SHORE =RAILROAD= ^^^ Popular Through Car Line BETWEEN New York, Boston, Albany, Utica, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, Niagara Falls, Toronto, Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago & St. Louis. The Only Line Running ThroMglhi , Drawiog , Room , Cars During the Summer Season Between Long Branch, Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia. the Catskill Mountains, Saratoga & Lake George. Rates the Lowest. .-. Time the Fastest. C. E. LAMBERT, Gen'l Passenger Agent, 5 VANDERBILT AVENUE, - - - NEW YORK Hundred Island House, Lake George, N. Y. FOR ILLUSTKAlEi) PAMPHLET APPLY TO HENRY E. NICHOLS, Manager. 1. N. SCOTT & SON, DEALERS IN Crockery, /f^ o Butter. Eggs, '^'rrr Qroceraes xnf NO. 18 RIDGE ST., GLENS FALLS, - N. Y. HISTORY! ^ , t^ We are milking iiis^tnry every day; eveiy month: every year! For the last thirty-nix yeary our business has been a iiistory making epocli in this section. A large number of hotels and cottages on the shores 'xA Historic Lake (jreorge will bear whness ol oni' skill in furnishing. AVe liave now gathered together from the P'ast and the West the largest stock of Low and Medium-Priced [huri URNiTURE that was ever shown north of Troy, and at pi'ices lower tlian all competitois. Cottage Furniture a Specialty Chamber Suites From $15.00 Upward. §>oO worth or over delivered at Lake Geoi-ge. Chas, O. Howe, Nl'-.W STOKE, 2,s, 30, 32 and 34 WAKIiEX STREET, GLENS FALLS, N. Y. Please mention this advertisement. And Boarding LIVERY Qree!n(^ Himlbbell UKE GEORGE, N. Y. F!RST=CUSS SINGLE AND DOUBLE RIGS! Experienced and Careful Drivers. Office Second Door North of Carpenter House. Patronage Solicited and Satisfaction Guaranteed. AriMg-too Hotel, Central Houise, LAKE GEORGE, - - - - - N. Y. Busses to all Trains antl Boats. SPECIAL RATES TO FAMILIES 1 WORDEN & DENTON. Proprietors. ^^ROBERT IMRIEj^ ey-at- Law, LAKE QEORQE, N. Y. REAL ESTATE FOR SALE! ABSTRACTS OF TITLE. 0. M. SMITH, BOAT BUILDER AND OAR MAKER. Row Soats, Sail Boats, Working Boats, Naptha and Steam Launches, Steam Yachts &c. Dealer in all kinds of Boat Machinery. Boats to let by the week, month or season. p. O. ADDRESS, LAKE GEORGE, N. Y. ^Smmmer Cottage AT THE HEAD OF LAKE GEORGE, ( 'ontaining twelve rooms. Cool and airy; completely turnished throughout ; surrounded by delightful grounds^; near the station and telegraph. For Rent on Moderate Terms. Apply to ELA\^N SEELYE, Joshua's Rock, Lake George, N. Y. J. D. & H. J. SELLECK, pine Grocer ie AND GENERAL MERCHANDISE. Flour, Feed, Hay, Grain and Straw! We make a specialty of Fresh Vegetables, Butter, Eg-g:s, Oranges. Lemons, Candies &c. LAKE GEORGE, N. Y. MRS. J. A. BLACK, Latest and Style 0pp. Central House, Lake George. Choice Assortment of Fancy Goods and Notions, including the Honiton and other fashionable Laces. All the Approved Shapes in Stock and Trimming to Order. An Inspection Invited. .= a . < 5 CD ^ < i Oi^ i e3i; ^^-. ^-. \.^' /i ffi"-. \. S \P '-. ' I ■*;?. ,0'^ «••*• .*^ > • - % c" ,.^- ^^-..■y^au * ^ ."-^ v' <^^r-. ^^ :^^^^^ * ' • ♦ *^