FOOTNOTES:
[28] Silliman, who was here in 1819, says: “The crystals are hardly surpassed by any in the world for transparency and perfection of form. They are, as usual, the six-sided prism, and are frequently terminated at both ends by six-sided pyramids. These last, of course, must be found loose, or, at least, not adhering to any rock; those which are broken off have necessarily only one pyramid.”—Silliman’s Travels, p. 153.
[29] This affair was alluded to by the English, though the Americans said nothing. Among recent writers, I have found no notice beyond that by Lossing in his Field Book, vol. i., p. 114. When the present writer composed his work on Lake George he had not found the official account by Col. Brown.
[30] See Relations des Jesuits, 1646, p. 15.
[31] Mr. Parkman, in his work The Jesuits in America (p. 219), has indeed stated that Father Jogues ascended Lake George in 1642, when, in company with Père Goupil, he was carried away a prisoner by the Indians.
The opinion of Mr. Parkman is based on a manuscript account of that journey, taken down from Father Jogues’ own lips by Father Buteux. The account, after describing the journey southward and over Lake Champlain, which occupied eight days, says that they “arrived at the place where one leaves the canoes” (où l’on quitte les canots), and then “marched southward three days by land,” until they reached the Mohawk villages. But there is nothing whatever in the description, by which we can recognize a passage over Lake George, nothing about the portage, the falls, nor the outlet. Everything turns chiefly on the fact that they arrived at the place where one leaves the canoes. This place, it is assumed, was the head of Lake George, from whence there was a trail southward. Now in regard to the existence of such a trail at that period, there can be no doubt; yet unquestionably it was not the only trail followed by the Indians. The old French map shows two trails to the Mohawk villages, one from the head of Lake George, and the other from the South-west Bay.
It is true that Champlain, in 1609, intended to go to the Mohawk country, by Lake George, yet at the period of Jogue’s captivity we have no account of any one taking that route. Father Jogues himself clearly did not cross the lake in 1646. It is distinctly said that they arrived at the end of the lake (bout de lac) on the eve of the Festival of St. Sacrament, when they named the lake, and the next day went south on foot, carrying their packs on their backs. This is the view given by every one who has treated the subject in print, including Mr. Parkman himself.
To this it has been answered that bout de lac always means the head of the lake, and that the terms are so used in the Relations; yet if we return to the Relations of 1668 (vol. ii., p. 5), detailing the journey of Fathers Fremin, Pieron and Bruyas, we find that this is not the case. The writer there says that while he and others delayed on an island in Lake Champlain, the boatmen went forward, “landing at the end of the Lake (bout de lac) du St. Sacrement, and preparing for the portage.” At this place, the north end of the lake, there is a heavy portage, in order to get around the Falls of Ticonderoga. In the next sentence he again calls this end of the lake, which is the north end or outlet, bout de lac. But we have also to remind the reader, that the place where Father Jogues left his canoe, in 1646, was at the north end of the lake (the foot), which he, like the others, calls bout de lac. The language is so translated by Parkman and others who have mentioned the circumstances. Bout de lac, in the Jesuit Relations, therefore does not mean the head of the lake. We see, then, that we have not sufficient reason for supposing that “the place where one leaves the canoes” meant the head, or south end of Lake George, and consequently that the alleged passage over the lake by Jogues, in 1642, is indefensible.
[32] State of the Expedition from Canada. By Burgoyne. p. xciv. Ed. 1780.
[33] Gates Papers, p. 194.
[34] Gates Papers, p. 208.
[35] State of the Expedition from Canada, p. 53.
[36] Gates Papers, p. 218.
[37] Gates Papers, p. 220.