The Champlain tercentenary

by New York . Lake Champlain Tercentenary Commission; Henry Wayland Hill

Copyrighted and by the courtesy of the Powers Engraving Co. of New York

I suppose this to be the last but one of the events connected with the Champlain Tercentenary. During the celebration, in 1909, as appears from the admirable and voluminous Report of the Commission, the dramatic history of this lake and its borderlands has been unfolded and illustrated in full detail by antiquarians, men of letters, orators, statesmen, poets, and prelates. Among the many representative speakers from official life were the President of the United States, the Ambassador from England, the Ambassador from France, certain high officials from the Dominion of Canada, the Governor of New York, a United States Senator from New York, the Governor of Vermont, and the Congressmen from that State. It may, therefore, be assumed, and the fact is, that those of us who speak to-day may not be harvesters but only gleaners in this fruitful field of local history and there is little left to garner for your store.

But shall we leave this stern and rock-bound structure to stand cold and stark and chained to a thankless service in shedding abroad its light for the warning and comfort of men without some simple rite of baptism? Shall we abandon this sweetly serious embodiment of French womanhood to face, unveiled, the tempest, the heat of summer and the frost of winter without a word of benediction and without some act of homage which is her due and which she is wont to receive from the gallant men of her own blood? It is true, she is well able to face undaunted the buffeting of hostile circumstance. Such has been her fate for centuries. In coarse apparel she has tilled the fields and kept her house, and by the proceeds of her thrift has ransomed a nation. She has seen visions, and under the inspiration of heavenly voices, and clad in mail, she has led armies and raised the siege of a city. She has fought behind barricades, and with heroic dignity has bared her fair throat to the guillotine. With gaiety unquenched, she has starved through the investment of her beloved Paris. Through sore privation she has won a name in art, in science, and in letters. She embodies the just combination of qualities which make for fineness, elasticity, strength, health and long life. So, with hands upon our hearts—to La Belle France, salutation and blessing! May she, joined together with her strong protectors, the great explorer, his man-at-arms and his Indian guide, long remain to figure forth the beautiful in art in this setting of the beautiful in nature.

The historical incidents which I may touch upon are such as occurred in the neighborhood of Crown Point and Ticonderoga and the fortresses which guarded the southern gateway of the lake.

It is generally agreed that Champlain and his allies fought their first battle against the Iroquois somewhere in this vicinity. From his naïve story of the encounter it appears that primitive man dearly loves to bandy words and to fight. As the Homeric heroes, when face to face in combat, interchanged long and high sounding speeches before falling to, so did the rival war parties in 1609. Champlain’s account says that when his men “were armed and in array, they sent two canoes, set apart from the others, to learn from their enemies if they wanted to fight. They replied that they wanted nothing else but that; at the moment there was not much light and they must wait for the daylight to recognize each other, and that as soon as the sun rose they would open the battle. This was accepted by our men; and while we waited, the whole night was passed in dances and songs, as much on one side as on the other, with endless insults and other talk, such as the little courage we had, our feeble men and inability to make resistance against their arms, and that when we came we should find it to our ruin. Our men were also not lacking in retort, telling them that they should see such power of arms as never before, and amid such other talk as is customary in the siege of a city.” Champlain, at the head of his men, fired the first shot with his arquebuse and killed two of the chiefs, mortally wounding a third. The writer evidently thought his account of the marvellous efficacy of his weapon of precision needed explanation, and adds that he loaded with four bullets. It would be fair to expect that one bullet would go wild.

It would be interesting if we could have the story of this fight from the Iroquois point of view. What impression did the outlandish pale-faces make upon the defending band of aborigines? What was their judgment as to the ethics of the invasion into their territory? We can well picture their demoralization upon the sudden killing of their three chiefs. But can sophisticated imagination fully grasp the degree of terror inspired by the bang of the guns of the explorers which broke the silence of the forest primeval? What do we know of that awful stillness? The Indian moved with catlike tread. The dip of his paddle made but a ripple. His arrow sped to its mark without sound. The life and death struggle for the survival of the fittest in the natural world went on about him in a silence broken only by the stifled squeak of a victim or the crunching of bones. The show of force in animate nature following patient waiting and reserve was swift and terrific, but silent—the swoop of the eagle upon its prey, the spring of the panther, the strike of the adder. The music of the denizens of the wilderness depended for its quality upon the general absence of sound above that of the waterfall or the rustling of leaves. Its various elemental strains—the hoot of the owl, the yell of the loon, the miaul of the panther, the redman’s love call, war cry and death song—all soared high above the symphony of inanimate nature. One modern political convention makes more noise in a day than the Indian ever heard through the centuries. Thrice and four times happy Iroquois!

For a century more or less after the discovery of the lake, there were bloody forays, without decisive results, back and forth between the French and Algonquins on the North and the English and Iroquois on the South.

In 1731 the French fortified a post here at Crown Point and called it Fort Frédéric. This was only a small stockade designed to accommodate thirty men. It gave place to a fortress large enough for 120 men, and in 1742 it was enlarged and strengthened, being then, with the exception of Quebec, the strongest French fortress in America. And under the protection of this fortress was the largest of the early settlements. Another small fort was constructed at Chimney Point opposite here, and about it groups of home seekers were gathered. All settlements in this neighborhood disappeared as soon as the French soldiers withdrew from Lake Champlain.