“Arnold’s men found lower Dead River, as we can see from their journals, much as it now is. On both sides luxuriant grass covered the plain, or faded out in the reaches of poorer soil; tall evergreens, rather thinly planted, soughed and swayed above it; while here and there a glimpse could be had of goodly mountains, the confines of the valley.” Professor Smith graphically describes the trials of those who traveled by water. Those who attempted to travel the “Kenebec Road” suffered even worse: “The land parties fared no better. It was impossible to keep along the river. Detours and wide circuits multiplied all distances. Swollen rivulets had to be followed up until a narrow place was found and a tree could be felled across for a bridge. Once, if not more than once, a party marched for miles up a stream only to discover that it was not Dead River at all. At night many of the men were unable to find the boats and had to bivouac as they could, without supper and without breakfast.” At last the brave band neared the portage to the north-flowing waters. Despite their distressing fatigues “there was only one thought:” writes Professor Smith, “advance; and the army set forward as rapidly as possible on the twenty-fifth and longest portage, four miles and a quarter over the Height of Land. For once their misfortunes wore the look of blessings: there was little freight. The provisions weighed only four or five pounds per man. A large part of the gunpowder proved to be damaged, and was thrown away.... The bateaux had broken up one by one, until some of the companies had scarcely any left. Morgan had preserved seven, and was determined on taking them across, for there was no other way to transport his military stores down the Chaudière; but resolution of such a temper was now beyond mere men. An attempt was made to trail the bateaux up a brook that enters Arnold Pond; but the attempt had to be given up, and each company, except Morgan’s, took only a single boat over the portage.
“Even in this light order, the troops were hardly able to conquer the mountain. There was a trail, to be sure, and Steele’s pioneers had bettered it; but a mountain trail, even when good, is not a highway, except in altitude. ‘Rubbish’ had been collecting here ever since creation, as it seemed to Morrison, and a handful of tired men could not remove it all in a few days’ time. Ten acres of trees blown down across the path had to be left there. A wet place half a mile wide could not be rooted up. Rocks, dead logs, gorges, and precipices had to be stumbled over. The snow, hiding pitfalls and stones, betrayed many a foot into a wrench and a bruise. Those who carried the boats—and no doubt all carried in turn—suffered still more, for bateaux and carriers often fell together pell-mell down a slope into the snow. ‘The Terrible Carrying-place’—that was the soldiers’ name for it.”
The portages between the Connecticut River and the Canadian waters were of great local importance during the Old French War and the Revolution; they were not as important to the country at large as those of the northeast. The two of special significance were routes to the St. Francis River, Lake Memframagog and Otter Creek (flowing into Lake Champlain). Fort Number Four “had been built by Massachusetts when it was supposed to be within its limits. It was projected by Colonel Stoddard, of Northampton, and was well situated, in connection with the other forts, on the western frontier, to command all the paths, by which the Indians travelled from Canada to New-England.”[42] This fort was on the celebrated highway from the Connecticut across country to Fort Edward on the Hudson River, so largely traveled throughout the period of military operations. In 1755 during Sir William Johnston’s campaign against Fort Crown Point, New Hampshire raised five hundred men, under the command of Colonel Joseph Blanchard. “The Governor,” writes Belknap, “ordered them to Connecticut river, to build a fort at Cohos, supposing it to be in their way to Crown Point. They first marched to Baker’s-town, where they began to build batteaux, and consumed time and provisions to no purpose. By Shirley’s advice they quitted that futile employment, and made a fatiguing march through the woods, by the way of Number-four, to Albany.”[43] The failure to capture Crown Point this year brought down a scourge of Indians upon New Hampshire, particularly from the St. Francis River, between which and the Connecticut there was “a safe and easy communication by short carrying-places.”[44] But the white men found this route ere long and themselves carried destruction up the St. Francis Valley.[45]
When in 1759, General Amherst was preparing to complete Wolfe’s victory by reducing the remainder of Canada, eight hundred New Hampshire men proceeded under Colonel John Goffe to Fort Number Four. “But instead of taking the old route, to Albany, they cut a road through the woods, directly toward Crown Point. In this work they made such dispatch, as to join that part of the army which Amherst had left at Crown Point, twelve days before their embarkation.”[46] This road was built over the portage to Otter Creek. It “began at Wentworth’s ferry, two miles above the fort at No. 4, and was cut 26 miles; at the end of which, they found a path, made the year before; in which they passed over the mountain to Otter Creek; where they found a good road, which led to Crown Point. Their stores were brought in waggons, as far as the 26 miles extended; and then transported on horses over the mountains. A drove of cattle for the supply of the army went from No. 4, by this route to Crown Point.”[47] This carrying place is conspicuously marked on a Board of Trade Map of 1755 in the British Public Records Office and described “From Crown Point to Stephens Fort about 60 Miles N. 25° W nearly.”[48] Fort Stephens is placed on the “Konektikut or Long R.” near the mouth of Black River. “A Survey of Lake Champlain” by William Brassier dated 1762 shows the line of this road southeast of Crown Point passing up Otter Creek. The legend reads “The Road was opened by the New Hampshire Regiments during the last War.”[49]
CHAPTER III
NEW YORK PORTAGES
The strategic value of the “Great Pass” from New York by way of the Hudson, Lakes George and Champlain, and the Richelieu River has already been emphasized. The important military points on the route were the portages from the Hudson to Lake George, from Lake George to Lake Champlain, the narrows at Crown Point, and the portage from Chambly to La Prairie on the St. Lawrence. These portages are marked on numerous early maps; the Hudson-Lake George portage is quite accurately drawn on Colonel Romer’s Map of 1700.[50] From that year on throughout the century the greater accuracy with which it is mapped illustrates its growing importance.
One of the most interesting early descriptions of this famous pass is given on a “Map of part of New York, comprehending the country between New York and Quebec, the river Connecticut, &c., to shew ‘the way from Albany to Canada ... part by land and part by water;’ drawn about 1720.”[51] The route is thus described: