The Niagara River

by Archer Butler Hulbert

In 1747 the Ohio Company was formed in Virginia and received its grant of land beyond the Alleghanies from the British King. With the exception of Lederer, whose explorations did not reach westward of Harper's Ferry, and Batts, who had visited the Falls of the Great Kanawha, the English colonies knew little or nothing of the West, save only the fables brought back by Spottswood's Knights of the Golden Horseshoe. But the doughty Irish and Scotch-Irish traders had pierced the mountains and made bold to challenge the trade of the French with the western nations. Immediately Celoron was sent from Montreal on the long voyage by way of Niagara to bury his leaden plates on the Ohio to re-establish the brave claim incised on La Salle's plate buried at the mouth of the Mississippi in 1682, which vaunted French possession of all lands drained by waters entering the Gulf of Mexico through the mouth of the Mississippi.

Celoron's expedition is interesting because this was the first open advance upon the Ohio Valley by France, leading to the building of a chain of forts westward from the key position, Fort Niagara. Celoron's Journal reads:

I arrived at Niagara on the 6th of July, where I found him [Mr. Labrevois]; we conferred together, and I wrote to the Chevalier de Longnaiul that which I had learned from Mr. de la Nardiere, and desired him, that if these nations of Detroit were in the design to come and join me, and not delay his departure, I would give the rendezvous at Strotves[26] on the 9th or 10th of August; that if they had changed their mind I would be obliged to him to send me couriers to inform me of their intentions, so that I may know what will happen to me. On the 7th of July, I sent M. de Contrecoeur, captain and second in command of the detachment, with the subaltern officers and all my canoes to make the portage. I remained at the fort, to wait for my savages who had taken on Lake Ontario another route than I had; having rejoined me I went to the portage which M. de Contrecoeur had made, on the 14th of the same month we entered Lake Erie; a high wind from the sea made me camp some distance from the little rapid; there I formed three companies to mount guard, which were of forty men commanded by an officer.

Returning from the Ohio trip Celoron reached Niagara again the 19th of February, 1750, and Montreal the 10th of March. At last reaching Quebec the frank leader of this spectacular expedition rendered his report concerning French possession of the West. "All that I can say is, that the [Indian] nations of these places are very ill-disposed against the French," were his words, "and entirely devoted to the English. I do not know by what means they can be reclaimed." Then followed one of the earliest suggestions of the use of French arms to retain possession of the great interior. "If violence is employed they [Indians] would be warned and take to flight . . . if we send to trade with them, our traders can never give our merchandize at the price the English do . . . people our old posts and perpetuate the nations on the Belle Riviere and who are within the reach of the English Government."

Specimen Manuscript Map of Niagara Frontier of Eighteenth Century.
From the original in the British Museum.

The plates of lead along the Ohio had very little effect in retarding the Ohio Company of Virginians, and Celoron had hardly left the Ohio Valley when Christopher Gist entered it to pick out and mark the boundaries of the Ohio Company's grant of land. This was in 1750. The Quebec Government, too, acted. If leaden plates would not hold the Ohio, then forts well guarded and manned would accomplish the end sought; and English spies on watch at Fort Oswego now saw a strange flotilla crossing Lake Ontario and knew something extraordinary was in the air. It was Marin's party on its way to fortify Celoron's route by building a chain of posts from Fort Niagara to the present site of Pittsburg at the junction of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers. After a rest at Niagara the fort-building party proceeded along Lake Erie to Presqu' Isle, now Erie, Pennsylvania. There they built Fort Presqu' Isle; at Watertown Fort La Boeuf was erected and Fort Machault at Franklin on the Allegheny, and Fort Duquesne at the junction of the Allegheny and Monongahela. All this between 1752 and 1754, despite the message sent by Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia by the hand of Major Washington requesting that the French withdraw from the Ohio Valley. In the latter year Washington marched westward to support the party of Virginian fort-builders who had been sent to fortify the strategic position on the Ohio, but was forced to capitulate by the French army, which drove back the English and on their beginnings erected Fort Duquesne.

The line of forts from Quebec to Fort Duquesne was now complete, and of them Fort Niagara was the key. To wrest from the French this western empire it was necessary to strike Fort Niagara, but, with the rare lack of foresight characteristic of the government headed by the impossible Newcastle, the great campaign of 1755 was as poorly conceived as it was executed. It was composed of three spectacular advances on this curling line of French forts that hemmed in the colonies; one army, under Sir William Johnson, should attack the forts on Lakes George and Champlain; Governor Shirley of Massachusetts should leap at Fort Niagara, and General Braddock, formerly commander of Gibraltar, should lead an army from Virginia across the mountains upon Fort Duquesne, after capturing which he should then join forces with Shirley for the conquest of Niagara if that post had not been previously reduced.

From almost any view-point the scheme of conquest seems a glaring inconsistency, but from what is this so conspicuous as by looking upon this French line of fortresses as a serpent whose head was Quebec, whose heart was Fort Niagara, and whose tail rattled luringly on the Ohio at Fort Duquesne? The chief expedition, on which the eyes of the ministry were centred, was the one which launched at this serpent's tail. Moreover, in addition to being wrongly directed it was improperly routed, since there were both waggons and wheat in Pennsylvania but comparatively none in Virginia, and the ill-fated commander of the expedition, General Edward Braddock, was the victim of the lethargy and indifference of the colonies.