The only route known to the white men was along the Mohawk River to Lake Oneida, then by the Oswego River to the little village of Oswego on Lake Ontario. To transport men and arms along this route was a great task, requiring much time, skill, and patience.
Oliver Perry was a man of action. On the very day that he received his orders, he started fifty men to Lake Ontario, and the next day fifty more.
On February 22d, in the coldest part of winter, he left his home and his young wife in Newport, and with his brother Alexander, began the difficult journey towards the north.
Sometimes they traveled in rude sleighs over the roughest of roads. Sometimes, when the river was not too full of ice, they embarked in canoes. At other times, they could only go on foot through the thick underbrush. On all sides was a vast wilderness, inhabited only by wild beasts and unfriendly Indians.
At Oswego, they embarked in boats and followed the shore of Lake Ontario to Sacketts Harbor. On one side of them was the dreary inland sea full of tossing white caps and overhung by the leaden sky of winter. On the other side lay the trackless forest.
To relieve their loneliness, they occasionally fired a musket. The echoes would roll along the shore, growing fainter and fainter. This only made the silence which followed seem greater than before.
A cold rain began to fall, and by the time they reached Sacketts Harbor they were drenched to the skin.
On March 16th, Lieutenant Perry set out for Lake Erie. Upon reaching the harbor at Erie he found that twenty-five ship carpenters had already begun work on three gunboats and two brigs. Fifty more carpenters had started four weeks before from Philadelphia, but had not yet arrived.
The task which lay before Oliver Perry seemed almost an impossible one. Mechanics, seamen, guns, sailcloth,—everything needed for the ships must be brought hundreds of miles through a wild and half-settled country.