Voyages of Samuel De Champlain — Volume 01

by Samuel de Champlain

CHAPTER VIII.

CHAMPLAIN OBTAINS MISSIONARIES FOR NEW FRANCE.—MEETS THE INDIANS AT MONTREAL AND ENGAGES IN A WAR AGAINST THE IROQUOIS.—HIS JOURNEY TO THE HURONS, AND WINTER IN THEIR COUNTRY.

During the whole of the year 1614, Champlain remained in France, occupied for the most part in adding new members to his company of associates, and in forming and perfecting such plans as were clearly necessary for the prosperity and success of the colony. His mind was particularly absorbed in devising means for the establishment of the Christian faith in the wilds of America. Hitherto nothing whatever had been done in this direction, if we except the efforts of Poutrincourt on the Atlantic coast, which had already terminated in disaster. [77] No missionary of any sort had hitherto set his foot upon that part of the soil of New France lying within the Gulf of St. Lawrence. [78] A fresh interest had been awakened in the mind of Champlain. He saw its importance in a new light. He sought counsel and advice from various persons whose wisdom commended them to his attention. Among the rest was Louis Houêl, an intimate friend, who held some office about the person of the king, and who was the chief manager of the salt works at Brouage. This gentleman took a hearty interest in the project, and assured Champlain that it would not be difficult to raise the means of sending out three or four Fathers, and, moreover, that he knew some of the order of the Recollects, belonging to a convent at Brouage, whose zeal he was sure would be equal to the undertaking. On communicating with them, he found them quite ready to engage in the work. Two of them were sent to Paris to obtain authority and encouragement from the proper sources. It happened that about this time the chief dignitaries of the church were in Paris, attending a session of the Estates. The bishops and cardinals were waited upon by Champlain, and their zeal awakened and their co-operation secured in raising the necessary means for sustaining the mission. After the usual negotiations and delays, the object was fully accomplished; fifteen hundred livres were placed in the hands of Champlain for outfit and expenses, and four Recollect friars embarked with him at Honfleur, on the ship "St. Étienne," on the 24th of April, 1615, viz., Denis Jamay, Jean d'Olbeau, Joseph le Caron, and the lay-brother Pacifique du Plessis. [79]

On their arrival at Quebec, Champlain addressed himself immediately to the preparation of lodgings for the missionaries and the erection of a chapel for the celebration of divine service. The Fathers were impatient to enter the fields of labor severally assigned to them. Joseph le Caron was appointed to visit the Hurons in their distant forest home, concerning which he had little or no information; but he nevertheless entered upon the duty with manly courage and Christian zeal. Jean d'Olbeau assumed the mission to the Montagnais, embracing the region about Tadoussac and the river Saguenay, while Denis Jamay and Pacifique du Plessis took charge of the chapel at Quebec.

At the earliest moment possible Champlain hastened to the rendezvous at Montreal, to meet the Indians who had already reached there on their annual visit for trade. The chiefs were in raptures of delight on seeing their old friend again, and had a grand scheme to propose. They had not forgotten that Champlain had often promised to aid them in their wars. They approached the subject, however, with moderation and diplomatic wisdom. They knew perfectly well that the trade in peltry was greatly desired, in fact that it was indispensable to the French. The substance of what they had to say was this. It had become now, if not impossible, exceedingly hazardous, to bring their furs to market. Their enemies, the Iroquois, like so many prowling wolves, were sure to be on their trail as they came down the Ottawa, and, incumbered with their loaded canoes, the struggle must be unequal, and it was nearly impossible for them ever to be winners. The only solution of the difficulty known to them, or which they cared to consider, as in all Indian warfare, was to annihilate their enemies utterly and wipe out their name for ever. Let this be done, and the fruits of peace would return, their commerce would be safe, prosperous, and greatly augmented.

Such were the reasons presented by the allies. But there were other considerations, likewise, which influenced the mind of Champlain. It was necessary to maintain a close and firm alliance with the Indians in order to extend the French discoveries and domain into new and more distant regions, and on this extension of French influence depended their hope of converting the savages to the Christian faith. The force of these considerations could not be resisted. Champlain decided that, under the circumstances, it was necessary to give them the desired assistance.

A general assembly was called, and the nature and extent of the campaign fully considered. It was to be of vastly greater proportions than any that had hitherto been proposed. The Indians offered to furnish two thousand five hundred and fifty men, but they were to be gathered together from different and distant points. The journey must, therefore, be long and perilous. The objective point, viz., a celebrated Iroquois fort, could not be reached by the only feasible route in a less distance than eight hundred or nine hundred miles, and it would require an absence of three or four months. Preparations for the journey were entered upon at once. Champlain visited Quebec to make arrangements for his long absence. On his return to Montreal, the Indians, impatient of delay, had already departed, and Father Joseph le Caron had gone with them to his distant field of missionary labor among the Hurons.

On the 9th of July, 1615, Champlain embarked, taking with him an interpreter, probably Etienne Brûlé, a French servant, and ten savages, who, with their equipments, were to be accommodated in two canoes. They entered the Rivière des Prairies, which flows into the St. Lawrence some leagues east of Montreal, crossing the Lake of the Two Mountains, passed up the Ottawa, taking the same route which he had traversed some years before, revisiting its long succession of reaches, its placid lakes, impetuous rapids, and magnificent falls, and at length arrived at the point where the river, by an abrupt angle, begins to flow from the northwest. Here, leaving the Ottawa, they entered the Mattawan, passing down this river into Lac du Talon, thence into Lac la Tortue, and by a short portage, into Lake Nipissing. After remaining here two days, entertained generously by the Nipissingian chiefs, they crossed the lake, and, following the channel of French River, entered Lake Huron, or rather the Georgian Bay. They coasted along until they reached the northern limits of the county of Simcoe. Here they disembarked and entered the territory of their old friends and allies, the Hurons.

The domain of this tribe consisted of a peninsula formed by the Georgian Bay, the river Severn, and Lake Simcoe, at the farthest, not more than forty by twenty-five miles in extent, but more generally cultivated by the native population, and of a richer soil than any region hitherto explored north of the St. Lawrence and the lakes. They visited four of their villages and were cordially received and feasted on Indian corn, squashes, and fish, with some variety in the methods of cooking. They then proceeded to Carhagouha, [80] a town fortified with a triple palisade of wood thirty-five feet in height. Here they found the Recollect Father Joseph Le Caron, who, having preceded them but a few days, and not anticipating the visit, was filled with raptures of astonishment and joy. The good Father was intent upon his pious work. On the 12th of August, surrounded by his followers, he formally erected a cross as a symbol of the faith, and on the same day they celebrated the mass and chanted TE DEUM LAUDAMUS for the first time.

Lingering but two days, Champlain and ten of the French, eight of whom had belonged to the suite of Le Caron, proceeded slowly towards Cahiagué, [81] the rendezvous where the mustering hosts of the savage warriors were to set forth together upon their hostile excursion into the country of the Iroquois. Of the Huron villages visited by them, six are particularly mentioned as fortified by triple palisades of wood. Cahiagué, the capital, encircled two hundred large cabins within its wooden walls. It was situated on the north of Lake Simcoe, ten or twelve miles from this body of water, surrounded by a country rich in corn, squashes, and a great variety of small fruits, with plenty of game and fish. When the warriors had mostly assembled, the motley crowd, bearing their bark canoes, meal, and equipments on their shoulders, moved down in a southwesterly direction till they reached the narrow strait that unites Lake Chouchiching with Lake Simcoe, where the Hurons had a famous fishing weir. Here they remained some time for other more tardy bands to join them. At this point they despatched twelve of the most stalwart savages, with the interpreter, Étienne Brûlé, on a dangerous journey to a distant tribe dwelling on the west of the Five Nations, to urge them to hasten to the fort of the Iroquois, as they had already received word from them that they would join them in this campaign.

Champlain and his allies soon left the fishing weir and coasted along the northeastern shore of Lake Simcoe until they reached its most eastern border, when they made a portage to Sturgeon Lake, thence sweeping down Pigeon and Stony Lakes, through the Otonabee into Rice Lake, the River Trent, the Bay of Quinté, and finally rounding the eastern point of Amherst Island, they were fairly on the waters of Lake Ontario, just as it merges into the great River St. Lawrence, and where the Thousand Islands begin to loom into sight. Here they crossed the extremity of the lake at its outflow into the river, pausing at this important geographical point to take the latitude, which, by his imperfect instruments, Champlain found to be 43 deg. north. [82]

Sailing down to the southern side of the lake, after a distance, by their estimate, of about fourteen leagues, they landed and concealed their canoes in a thicket near the shore. Taking their arms, they proceeded along the lake some ten miles, through a country diversified with meadows, brooks, ponds, and beautiful forests filled with plenty of wild game, when they struck inland, apparently at the mouth of Little Salmon River. Advancing in a southerly direction, along the course of this stream, they crossed Oneida River, an outlet of the lake of the same name. When within about ten miles of the fort which they intended to capture, they met a small party of savages, men, women, and children, bound on a fishing excursion. Although unarmed, nevertheless, according to their custom, they took them all prisoners of war, and began to inflict the usual tortures, but this was dropped on Champlain's indignant interference. The next day, on the 10th of October, they reached the great fortress of the Iroquois, after a journey of four days from their landing, a distance loosely estimated at from twenty-five to thirty leagues. Here they found the Iroquois in their fields, industriously gathering in their autumnal harvest of corn and squashes. A skirmish ensued, in which several were wounded on both sides.

The fort, a drawing of which has been left us by Champlain, was situated a few miles south of the eastern terminus of Oneida Lake, on a small stream that winds its way in a northwesterly direction, and finally loses itself in the same body of water. This rude military structure was hexagonal in form, one of its sides bordering immediately upon a small pond, while four of the other laterals, two on the right and two on the left were washed by a channel of water flowing along their bases. [83] The side opposite the pond alone had an unobstructed land approach. As an Indian military work, it was of great strength. It was made of the trunks of trees, as large as could be conveniently transported. These were set in the ground, forming four concentric palisades, not more than six inches apart, thirty feet in height, interlaced and bound together near the top, supporting a gallery of double paling extending around the whole enclosure, proof not only against the flint-headed arrows of the Indian, but against the leaden bullets of the French arquebus. Port-holes were opened along the gallery, through which effective service could be done upon assailants by hurling stones and other missiles with which they were well provided. Gutters were laid along between the palisades to conduct water to every part of the fortification for extinguishing fire, in case of need.

It was obvious to Champlain that this fort was a complete protection to the Iroquois, unless an opening could be made in its walls. This could not be easily done by any force which he and his allies had at their command. His only hope was in setting fire to the palisades on the land side. This required the dislodgement of the enemy, who were posted in large numbers on the gallery, and the protection of the men in kindling the fire, and shielding it, when kindled, against the extinguishing torrents which could be poured from the water-spouts and gutters of the fort. He consequently ordered two instruments to be made with which he hoped to overcome these obstacles. One was a wooden tower or frame-work, dignified by Champlain as a cavalier, somewhat higher than the palisades, on the top of which was an enclosed platform where three or four sharp-shooters could in security clear the gallery, and thus destroy the effective force of the enemy. The other was a large wooden shield, or mantelet, under the protection of which they could in safety approach and kindle a fire at the base of the fort, and protect the fire thus kindled from being extinguished by water coming from above.

When all was in readiness, two hundred savages bore the framed tower and planted it near the palisades. Three arquebusiers mounted it and poured a deadly fire upon the defenders on the gallery. The battle now began and raged fiercely for three hours, but Champlain strove in vain to carry out any plan of attack. The savages rushed to and fro in a frenzy of excitement, filling the air with their discordant yells, observing no method and heeding no commands. The wooden shields were not even brought forward, and the burning of the fort was undertaken with so little judgment and skill that the fire was instantly extinguished by the fountains of water let loose by the skilful defenders through the gutters and water-spouts of the fort.

The sharp-shooters on the tower killed and wounded a large number, but nevertheless no effective impression was made upon the fortress. Two chiefs and fifteen men of the allies were wounded, while one was killed, or died of wounds received in a skirmish before the formal attack upon the fort began. After a frantic and desultory fight of three hours, the attacking savages lost their courage and began to clamor for a retreat. No persuasions could induce them to renew the attack.

After lingering four days in vain expectation of the arrival of the allies to whom Brûlé had been sent, the retreat began. Champlain had been wounded in the knee and leg, and was unable to walk. Litters in the form of baskets were fabricated, into which the wounded were packed in a constrained and uncomfortable attitude, and carried on the shoulders of the men. As the task of the carriers was lightened by frequent relays, and, as there was little baggage to impede their progress, the march was rapid. In three days they had reached their canoes, which had remained in the place of their concealment near the shore of the lake, an estimated distance of twenty-five or thirty leagues from the fort.

Such was the character of a great battle among the contending savages, an undisciplined host, without plan or well-defined purpose, rushing in upon each other in the heat of a sudden frenzy of passion, striking an aimless blow, and following it by a hasty and cowardly retreat. They had, for the time being at least, no ulterior design. They fought and expected no substantial reward of their conflict. The sweetness of personal revenge and the blotting out a few human lives were all they hoped for or cared at this time to attain. The invading party had apparently destroyed more than they had themselves lost, and this was doubtless a suitable reward for the hazards and hardships of the campaign.

The retreating warriors lingered ten days on the shore of Lake Ontario, at the point where they had left their canoes, beguiling the time in preparing for hunting and fishing excursions, and for their journey to their distant homes. Champlain here took occasion to call the attention of the allies to their promise to conduct him safely to his home. The head of the St. Lawrence as it flows from the Ontario is less than two hundred miles from Montreal, a journey by canoes not difficult to make. Champlain desired to return this way, and demanded an escort. The chiefs were reluctant to grant his request. Masters in the art of making excuses, they saw many insuperable obstacles. In reality, they did not desire to part with him, but wished to avail themselves of his knowledge, counsel, and personal aid against their enemies. When one obstacle after another gave way, and when volunteers were found ready to accompany him, no canoes could be spared for the journey. This closed the debate. Champlain was not prepared for the exposure and hardship of a winter among the savages, but there was left to him no choice. He submitted as gracefully as he could, and with such patience as necessity made it possible for him to command.

The bark flotilla was at length ready to leave the borders of the present State of New York. According to their usual custom in canoe navigation, they crept along the shore of the Ontario, revisiting an island at the eastern extremity of the lake, not unlikely the same place where Champlain had stopped to take the latitude a few weeks before. Crossing over from the island to the mainland on the north, they appear to have continued up the Cataraqui Creek east of Kingston, and, after a short portage, entered Loughborough Lake, a sheet of water then renowned as a resort of waterfowl in vast numbers and varieties. Having bagged all they desired, they proceeded inland twenty or thirty miles, to the objective point of their excursion, which was a famous hunting-ground for wild game. Here they constructed a deer-trap, an enclosure into which the unsuspecting animals were beguiled and from which it was impossible for them to escape. Deer-hunting was of all pursuits, if we except war, the most exciting to the Indians. It not only yielded the richest returns to their larder, and supplied more fully other domestic wants, but it possessed the element of fascination, which has always given zest and inspiration to the sportsman.

They lingered here thirty-eight days, during which time they captured one hundred and twenty deer. They purposely prolonged their stay that the frost might seal up the marshes, ponds, and rivers over which they were to pass. Early in December they began to arrange into convenient packages their peltry and venison, the fat of which was to serve as butter in their rude huts during the icy months of winter. On the 4th of the month they broke camp and began their weary march, each savage bearing a burden of not less than a hundred pounds, while Champlain himself carried a package of about twenty. Some of them constructed rude sledges, on which they easily dragged their luggage over the ice and snow. During the progress of the journey, a warm current came sweeping up from the south, melted the ice, flooded the marshes, and for four days the overburdened and weary travellers struggled on, knee-deep in mud and water and slush. Without experience, a lively imagination alone can picture the toil, suffering, and exposure of a journey through the tangled forests and half-submerged bogs and marshes of Canada, in the most inclement season of the year.

At length, on the 23d of December, after nineteen days of excessive toil, they arrived at Cahiagué, the chief town of the Hurons, the rendezvous of the allied tribes, whence they had set forth on the first of September, nearly four months before, on what may seem to us a bootless raid. To the savage warriors, however, it doubtless seemed a different thing. They had been enabled to bring home valuable provisions, which were likely to be important to them when an unsuccessful hunt might, as it often did, leave them nearly destitute of food. They had lost but a single man, and this was less than they had anticipated, and, moreover, was the common fortune of war. They had invaded the territory and made their presence felt in the very home of their enemies, and could rejoice in having inflicted upon them more injury than they had themselves received. Though they had not captured or annihilated them, they had done enough to inspire and fully sustain their own grovelling pride.

To Champlain even, although the expedition had been accompanied by hardship and suffering and some disappointments, it was by no means a failure. He had explored an interesting and important region; he had gone where European feet had never trod, and had seen what European eyes had never seen; he had, moreover, planted the lilies of France in the chief Indian towns, and at all suitable and important points, and these were to be witnesses of possession and ownership in what his exuberant imagination saw as a vast French empire rising into power and opulence in the western world.

It was now the last week in December, and the deep snows and piercing cold rendered it impossible for Champlain or even the allied warriors to continue their journey further. The Algonquins and Nipissings became guests of the Hurons for the winter, encamping within their principal walled town, or perhaps in some neighboring village not far removed.

After the rest of a few days at Cahiagué, where he had been hospitably entertained, Champlain took his departure for Carhagouha, a smaller village, where his friend the Recollect Father, Joseph le Caron, had taken up his abode as the pioneer missionary to the Hurons. It was important for Le Caron to obtain all the information possible, not only of the Hurons, but of all the surrounding tribes, as he contemplated returning to France the next summer to report to his patrons upon the character, extent, and hopefulness of the missionary field which he had been sent out to explore. Champlain was happy to avail himself of his company in executing the explorations which he desired to make.

They accordingly set out together on the 15th of January, and penetrated the trackless and snow-bound forests, and, proceeding in a western direction, after a journey of two days reached a tribe called Petuns, an agricultural people, similar in habits and mode of life to the Hurons. By them they were hospitably received, and a great festival, in which all their neighbors participated, was celebrated in honor of their new guests. Having visited seven or eight of their villages, the explorers pushed forward still further west, when they came to the settlement of an interesting tribe, which they named Cheveux-Relevés, or the "lofty haired," an appellation suggested by the mode of dressing their hair.

On their return from this expedition, they found, on reaching the encampment of the Nipissings, who were wintering in the Huron territory, that a disagreement had arisen between the Hurons and their Algonquin guests, which had already assumed a dangerous character. An Iroquois captive taken in the late war had been awarded to the Algonquins, according to the custom of dividing the prisoners among the several bands of allies, and, finding him a skilful hunter, they resolved to spare his life, and had actually adopted him as one of their tribe. This had offended the Hurons, who expected he would be put to the usual torture, and they had commissioned one of their number, who had instantly killed the unfortunate prisoner by plunging a knife into his heart. The assassin, in turn, had been set upon by the Algonquins and put to death on the spot. The perpetrators of this last act had regretted the occurrence, and had done what they could to heal the breach by presents: but there was, nevertheless, a smouldering feeling of hostility still lingering in both parties, which might at any moment break out into open conflict.

It was obvious to Champlain that a permanent disagreement between these two important allies would be a great calamity to themselves as well as disastrous to his own plans. It was his purpose, therefore, to bring them, if possible, to a cordial pacification. Proceeding cautiously and with great deliberation, he made himself acquainted with all the facts of the quarrel, and then called an assembly of both parties and clearly set before them in all its lights the utter foolishness of allowing a circumstance of really small importance to interfere with an alliance between two great tribes; an alliance necessary to their prosperity, and particularly in the war they were carrying on against their common enemy, the Iroquois. This appeal of Champlain was so convincing that when the assembly broke up all professed themselves entirely satisfied, although the Algonquins were heard to mutter their determination never again to winter in the territory of the Hurons, a wise and not unnatural conclusion.

Champlain's constant intercourse with these tribes for many months in their own homes, his explorations, observations, and inquiries, enabled him to obtain a comprehensive, definite, and minute knowledge of their character, religion, government, and mode of life. As the fruit of these investigations, he prepared in the leisure of the winter an elaborate memoir, replete with discriminating details, which is and must always be an unquestionable authority on the subject of which it treats.

ENDNOTES:

77. De Poutrincourt obtained a confirmation from Henry IV. of the gift to him of Port Royal by De Monts, and proceeded to establish a colony there in 1608. In 1611, a Jesuit mission was planted by the Fathers Pierre Biard and Enemond Massé. It was chiefly patronized by a bevy of ladies, under the leadership of the Marchioness de Guerchville, in close association with Marie de Médicis, the queen-regent, Madame de Verneuil, and Madame de Soudis. Although De Poutrincourt was a devout member of the Roman Church, the missionaries were received with reluctance, and between them and the patentee and his lieutenant there was a constant and irrepressible discord. The lady patroness, the Marchioness de Guerchville, determined to abandon Port Royal and plant a new colony at Kadesquit, on the site of the present city of Bangor, in the State of Maine. A colony was accordingly organized, which included the fathers, Quentin and Lalemant with the lay brother, Gilbert du Thet, and arrived at La Hève in La Cadie, on the 6th of May, 1613, under the conduct of Sieur de la Saussaye. From there they proceeded to Port Royal, took the two missionaries, Biard and Massé, on board, and coasted along the borders of Maine till they came to Mount Desert, and finally determined to plant their colony on that island. A short time after the arrival of the colony, before they were in any condition for defence, Captain Samuel Argall, from the English colony in Virginia, suddenly appeared, and captured and transported the whole colony, and subsequently that at Port Royal, on the alleged ground that they were intruders on English soil. Thus disastrously ended Poutrincourt's colony at Port Royal, and the Marchioness de Guerchville's mission at Mount Desert.—Vide Voyages par le Sr. de Champlain, Paris ed. 1632, pp. 98-114. Shea's Charlevoix, Vol. I. pp. 260-286.

78. Champlain had tried to induce Madame de Guerchville to send her missionaries to Quebec, to avoid the obstacles which they had encountered at Port Royal; but, for the simple reason that De Monts was a Calvinist, she would not listen to it.—Vide Shea's Charlevoix, Vol. I. p. 274; Voyages du Sieur de Champlain, Paris ed. 1632, pp. 112, 113.

79. Vide Histoire du Canada, par Gabriel Sagard, Paris, 1636, pp. 11-12.

80. Carhagouha, named by the French Saint Gabriel. Dr. J. C. Taché, of Ottawa, Canada, who has given much attention to the subject, fixes this village in the central part of the present township of Tiny, in the county of Simcoe.—MS. Letter, Feb. 11, 1880.

81. Cahiagué. Dr. Taché places this village on the extreme eastern limit of the township of Orillia, in the same county, in the bend of the river Severn, a short distance after it leaves Lake Couchiching. The Indian warriors do not appear to have launched their flotilla of bark canoes until they reached the fishing station at the outlet of Lake Simcoe. This village was subsequently known as Saint-Jean Baptiste.

82. The latitude of Champlain is here far from correct. It is not possible to determine the exact place at which it was taken. It could not, however have been at a point much below 44 deg. 7'.

83. There has naturally been some difficulty in fixing satisfactorily the site of the Iroquois fort attacked by Champlain and his allies.

The sources of information on which we are to rely in identifying the site of this fort are in general the same that we resort to in fixing any locality mentioned in his explorations, and are to be found in Champlain's journal of this expedition, the map contained in what is commonly called his edition of 1632, and the engraved picture of the fort executed by Champlain himself, which was published in connection with his journal. The information thus obtained is to be considered in connection with the natural features of the country through which the expedition passed, with such allowance for inexactness as the history, nature, and circumstances of the evidence render necessary.

The map of 1632 is only at best an outline, drafted on a very small scale, and without any exact measurements or actual surveys. It pictures general features, and in connection with the journal may be of great service.

Champlain's distances, as given in his journal, are estimates made under circumstances in which accuracy was scarcely possible. He was journeying along the border of lakes and over the face of the country, in company with some hundreds of wild savages, hunting and fishing by the way, marching in an irregular and desultory manner, and his statements of distances are wisely accompanied by very wide margins, and are of little service, taken alone, in fixing the site of an Indian town. But when natural features, not subject to change, are described, we can easily comprehend the meaning of the text.

The engraving of the fort may or may not have been sketched by Champlain on the spot: parts of it may have been and doubtless were supplied by memory, and it is decisive authority, not in its minor, but in its general features.

With these observations, we are prepared to examine the evidence that points to the site of the Iroquois fort.

When the expedition, emerging from Quinté Bay, arrived at the eastern end of Lake Ontario, at the point where the lake ends and the River St. Lawrence begins, they crossed over the lake, passing large and beautiful islands. Some of these islands will be found laid down on the map of 1632. They then proceeded, a distance, according to their estimation, of about fourteen leagues, to the southern side of Lake Ontario, where they landed and concealed their canoes. The distance to the southern side of the lake is too indefinitely stated, even if we knew at what precise point the measurement began, to enable us to fix the exact place of the landing.

They marched along the sandy shore about four leagues, and then struck inland. If we turn to the map of 1632, on which a line is drawn to rudely represent their course, we shall see that on striking inland they proceeded along the banks of a small river to which several small lakes or ponds are tributary. Little Salmon River being fed by numerous small ponds or lakes may well be the stream figured by Champlain. The text says they discovered an excellent country along the lake before they struck inland, with fine forest-trees, especially the chestnut, with abundance of vines. For several miles along Lake Ontario on the north-east of Little Salmon River the country answers to this description.—Vide MS. Letters of the Rev. James Cross, D.D., LL.D., and of S. D. Smith, Esq., of Mexico, N.Y.

The text says they continued their course about twenty-five or thirty leagues. This again is indefinite, allowing a margin of twelve or fifteen miles; but the text also says they crossed a river flowing from a lake in which were certain beautiful islands, and moreover that the river so crossed discharged into Lake Ontario. The lake here referred to must be the Oneida, since that is the only one in the region which contains any islands whatever, and therefore the river they crossed must be the Oneida River, flowing from the lake of the same name into Lake Ontario.

Soon after they crossed Oneida River, they met a band of savages who were going fishing, whom they made prisoners. This occurred, the text informs us, when they were about four leagues from the fort. They were now somewhere south of Oneida Lake. If we consult the map of 1632, we shall find represented on it an expanse of water from which a stream is represented as flowing into Lake Ontario, and which is clearly Oneida Lake, and south of this lake a stream is represented as flowing from the east in a northwesterly direction and entering this lake towards its western extremity, which must be Chittenango Creek or one of its branches. A fort or enclosed village is also figured on the map, of such huge dimensions that it subtends the angle formed by the creek and the lake, and appears to rest upon both. It is plain, however, from the text that the fort does not rest upon Oneida Lake; we may infer therefore that it rested upon the creek figured on the map, which from its course, as we have already seen, is clearly intended to represent Chittenango Creek or one of its branches. A note explanatory of the map informs us that this is the village where Champlain went to war against the "Antouhonorons," that is to say, the Iroquois. The text informs us that the fort was on a pond, which furnished a perpetual supply of water. We therefore look for the site of the ancient fort on some small body of water connected with Chittenango Creek.

If we examine Champlain's engraved representation of the fort, we shall see that it is situated on a peninsula, that one side rests on a pond, and that two streams pass it, one on the right and one on the left, and that one side only has an unobstructed land-approach. These channels of water coursing along the sides are such marked characteristics of the fort as represented by Champlain, that they must be regarded as important features in the identification of its ancient site.

On Nichols's Pond, near the northeastern limit of the township of Fenner in Madison County, N.Y., the site of an Indian fort was some years since discovered, identified as such by broken bits of pottery and stone implements, such as are usually found in localities of this sort. It is situated on a peculiarly formed peninsula, its northern side resting on Nichols's Pond, while a small stream flowing into the pond forms its western boundary, and an outlet of the pond about thirty-two rods east of the inlet, running in a south-easterly direction, forms the eastern limit of the fort. The outlet of this pond, deflecting to the east and then sweeping round to the north, at length finds its way in a winding course into Cowashalon Creek, thence into the Chittenango, through which it flows into Oneida Lake, at a point north-west of Nichols's Pond.

If we compare the geographical situation of Champlain's fort as figured on his map of 1632, particularly with reference to Oneida Lake, we shall observe a remarkable correspondence between it and the site of the Indian fort at Nichols's Pond. Both are on the south of Oneida Lake, and both are on streams which flow into that lake by running in a north-westerly direction. Moreover, the site of the old fort at Nichols's Pond is situated on a peninsula like that of Champlain; and not only so, but it is on a peninsula formed by a pond on one side, and by two streams of water on two other opposite sides; thus fulfilling in a remarkable degree the conditions contained in Champlain's drawing of the fort.

If the reader has carefully examined and compared the evidences referred to in this note, he will have seen that all the distinguishing circumstances contained in the text of Champlain's journal, on the map of 1632, and in his drawing of the fort, converge to and point out this spot on Nichols's Pond as the probable site of the palisaded Iroquois town attacked by Champlain in 1615.

We are indebted to General John S. Clark, of Auburn, N.Y., for pointing
out and identifying the peninsula at Nichols's Pond as the site of the
Iroquois fort.—Vide Shea's Notes on Champlain's Expedition into
Western New York in 1615, and the Recent Identification of the Fort,
by General John S Clark, Pennsylvania Magazine of History,
Philadelphia, Vol. II. pp. 103-108; also A Lost Point in History, by
L. W. Ledyard, Cazenovia Republican, Vol. XXV. No 47; Champlain's
Invasion of Onondaga, by the Rev. W. M. Beauchamp, Baldwinsville
Gazette, for June 27, 1879.

We are indebted to Orsamus H. Marshall, Esq., of Buffalo, N.Y., for proving the site of the Iroquois fort to be in the neighborhood of Oneida Lake, and not at a point farther west as claimed by several authors.—Vide Proceedings of the New York Historical Society for 1849, p. 96; Magazine of American History, New York, Vol. I. pp. 1-13, Vol. II. pp. 470-483.