struck the stump of a tree three feet in diameter, and, upon removing it, a stone wall, regularly laid, was found beneath it.
This spot, known as Fort Frontenac, was a place of much importance during the intercolonial wars of the last century. It was first a fur trading and missionary station of the Quebec colony. In 1673, Count Louis Frontenac, governor of Canada, erected a fort there and gave it his own name, and for eighty years it was one of the strongest military posts in America. It was from this point that Father Marquette (under the patronage of Frontenac) and other missionaries took their final departure for explorations in the Far West, and here provisions and stores were kept to supply other military and religious establishments upon the great lakes. Fort Frontenac remained in possession of the French until 1758, when Colonel Bradstreet, * with a detachment of men, chiefly provincials of New York and New England, captured it. After the disastrous defeat of Abercrombie at Ticonderoga, Colonel Bradstreet solicited and obtained permission to undertake that expedition. He traversed the wilderness to Oswego, where he embarked in three vessels already prepared for him, descended the lake, and suddenly appeared before Frontenac. The weak garrison, overwhelmed by numbers, surrendered without resistance. The commander of the fort was exchanged for Colonel Peter Schuyler, then a prisoner in Canada.
Leaving a small garrison to keep the post, Bradstreet and his troops returned and aided in building Fort Stanwix, upon the Mohawk, at the portage between that river and Wood Creek, a tributary of Oneida Lake. Among his officers were, Colonel Charles Clinton, of Ulster county, New York; Major Nathaniel Woodhull, who fell on Long Island in 1776, and Goosen Van Schaick, of Albany, and Lieutenant Marinus Willett, of New York, who were afterward colonels in the New York Revolutionary line. **
We did not land at Kingston, for the tarrying time of the boat was uncertain. It was nearly sunset when we left, and we passed the southern extremity of Gage Island just in time to see its last rays sparkling upon the tree-tops on Amherst Island, in the far distance. Ontario, like the St. Lawrence, was unruffled, and the evening voyage between Kingston and Sackett's Harbor was exceedingly pleasant, rendered so chiefly by a cool breeze, cushioned seats, agreeable company, and the anticipations of meeting dear friends at Oswego the next morning. We landed there a little after daybreak, and tarried three days before starting for the "Niagara frontier."
Oswego is beautifully situated upon Lake Ontario, on each side of the Chouegesen or Oswego River, a large and rapid stream, through which flow the waters of eight considerable lakes in the interior of New York—the Canandagua, Crooked, Seneca, Cayuga, Owasoo, Skaneateles, Onondaga, and Oneida, with their numerous little tributaries—and drains a surface of four thousand five hundred square miles. Beautifully significant are the Indian names of Oswego and Ontario—rapid water and pretty lake—for the river comes foaming
* John Bradstreet was a native of England. He was Lieutenant-governor of St. John's, Newfoundland, in 1746, and ten years afterward accompanied the expeditions against the French on the frontier of New York. In 1756 he was commissary general, and engaged in keeping up a communication between Albany and Oswego. He had charge of boats that carried provisions, and so much were they annoyed by the In dians in the French service, while passing down the Onondaga or Oswego River, that it required a great deal of skill and bravery to defend them. A small stockade fort near the site of the present village of Rome was cut off by the enemy, and they were obliged to depend upon their own power, in the open forest, for protection. He had a severe engagement near the margin of Oneida Lake, with a large war party of savages, but gained a victory, leaving nearly two hundred of the enemy dead upon the field. His own loss was about thirty. His capture of Fort Frontenac, in 1758, put into the possession of the English the fort, nine armed vessels, forty pieces of cannon, a vast quantity of provisions and stores, and one hundred and ten prisoners. In the summer of 1764 he was employed against the Indians on the borders of Ontario, and at Presque Isle he compelled the Delawares, Shawnees, and other tribes to agree to terms of peace. He was appointed major general in 1772, and died at New York, October 21st, 1774.
** The captains of the New York troops engaged in this expedition were, Jonathan Ogden, of West Chester; Peter Dubois, of New York; Samuel Bladgely and William Humphrey, of Dutchess; Daniel Wright and Richard Howlet, of Queens; Thomas Arrowsmith, of Richmond; Ebenezer Seely, of Ulster; and Peter Yates and Goosen Van Schaick, of Albany
Oswego.—Expedition of Frontenac.—Fort built by Governor Burnet.— Fort Niagara
down broad rapids several miles before it expands into the harbor and mingles its flood with the blue waters of Ontario. Its hydraulic power, its commercial position relative to Canada and the great West of our own dominion, and the healthfulness of its climate, mark out Oswego for a busy and populous city. These advantages of locality were early perceived by the English, and were probably not entirely overlooked by the French. But military occupation, for the purpose of spreading wide the overshadowing wings of empire, through the two-fold influences of religion and traffic, seemed to be the chief design of the French in planting small colonies at commanding points.
As early as July, 1696, Frontenac, governor of Canada, fitted out an expedition to attack the Five Nations in New York, * and Oswego was made his place of rendezvous. There he built a small stockade fort on the west side of the river, and then proceeded with fifty men into the interior as far as the Onondaga Valley. The Indians fled before him, but upon the shore of Onondaga Lake, near the present Salina, they left their emblem of defiance—two bundles of rushes suspended from a branch. The governor returned to Oswego, and sailed for Fort Frontenac, without accomplishing any good for himself or harm to the Indians, except burning their dwellings when they fled from them. Three years previously, Frontenac, by another route, fell upon the Indians on the Mohawk, near Schenectady, slew many, and took about three hundred prisoners.