61. For the identification of the site of this battle, see Vol. II p. 223,
note 348. It is eminently historical ground. Near it Fort Carrillon was
erected by the French in 1756. Here Abercrombie was defeated by
Montcalm in 1758. Lord Amherst captured the fort in 1759 Again it was
taken from the English by the patriot Ethan Alien in 1775. It was
evacuated by St. Clair when environed by Burgoyne in 1777, and now for
a complete century it has been visited by the tourist as a ruin
memorable for its many historical associations.
62. This lake, discovered and explored by Champlain, is ninety miles in length. Through its centre runs the boundary line between the State of New York and that of Vermont. From its discovery to the present time it has appropriately borne the honored name of Champlain. For its Indian name, Caniaderiguarunte, see Vol. II. note 349. According to Mr. Shea the Mohawk name of Lake Champlain is Caniatagaronte.—Vide Shea's Charlevoix. Vol. II. p. 18.
Lake Champlain and the Hudson River were both discovered the same year, and were severally named after the distinguished navigators by whom they were explored. Champlain completed his explorations at Ticonderoga, on the 30th of July, 1609, and Hudson reached the highest point made by him on the river, near Albany, on the 22d of September of the same year.—Vide Vol. II. p. 219. Also The Third Voyage of Master Henry Hudson, written by Robert Ivet of Lime-house, Collections of New York His. Society, Vol. I. p. 140.
63. Lake George. The Jesuit Father, Isaac Jogues, having been summoned in 1646 to visit the Mohawks, to attend to the formalities of ratifying a treaty of peace which had been concluded with them, passing by canoe up the Richelieu, through Lake Champlain, and arriving at the end of Lake George on the 29th of May, the eve of Corpus Christi, a festival celebrated by the Roman Church on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, in honor of the Holy Eucharist or the Lord's Supper, named this lake LAC DU SAINT SACREMENT. The following is from the Jesuit Relation of 1646 by Pere Hierosme Lalemant. Ils arriuèrent la veille du S. Sacrement au bout du lac qui est ioint au grand lac de Champlain. Les Iroquois le nomment Andiatarocté, comme qui diroit, là où le lac se ferme. Le Pere le nomma le lac du S. Sacrement—Relations des Jésuites, Quebec ed. Vol. II. 1646, p. 15.
Two important facts are here made perfectly plain; viz. that the original Indian name of the lake was Andtatarocté, and that the French named it Lac du Saint Sacrement because they arrived on its shores on the eve of the festival celebrated in honor of the Eucharist or the Lord's Supper. Notwithstanding this very plain statement, it has been affirmed without any historical foundation whatever, that the original Indian name of this lake was Horican, and that the Jesuit missionaries, having selected it for the typical purification of baptism on account of its limpid waters, named it Lac du Saint Sacrement. This perversion of history originated in the extraordinary declaration of Mr. James Fenimore Cooper, in his novel entitled "The Last of the Mohicans," in which these two erroneous statements are given as veritable history. This new discovery by Cooper was heralded by the public journals, scholars were deceived, and the bold imposition was so successful that it was even introduced into a meritorious poem in which the Horican of the ancient tribes and the baptismal waters of the limpid lake are handled with skill and effect. Twenty-five years after the writing of his novel, Mr. Cooper's conscience began seriously to trouble him, and he publicly confessed, in a preface to "The Last of the Mohicans," that the name Horican had been first applied to the lake by himself, and without any historical authority. He is silent as to the reason he had assigned for the French name of the lake, which was probably an assumption growing out of his ignorance of its meaning—Vide The Last of The Mohicans, by J. Fenimore Cooper, Gregory's ed., New York, 1864, pp ix-x and 12.
64. "There are certain general customs which mark the California Indians, as, the non-use of torture on prisoners of war," &c.—Vide The Tribes of California, by Stephen Powers, in Contributions to North American Ethnology, Vol. III. p. 15. Tribes of Washington and Oregon, by George Gibbs, idem, Vol. I. p. 192.
65. "It has been erroneously asserted that the practice of scalping did not prevail among the Indians before the advent of Europeans. In 1535, Cartier saw five scalps at Quebec, dried and stretched on hoops. In 1564, Laudonniere saw them among the Indians of Florida. The Algonquins of New England and Nova Scotia were accustomed to cut off and carry away the head, which they afterwards scalped. Those of Canada, it seems, sometimes scalped the dead bodies on the field. The Algonquin practice of carrying off heads as trophies is mentioned by Lalemant, Roger Williams, Lescarbot, and Champlain."—Vide Pioneers of France in the New World, by Francis Parkman, Boston, 1874, p. 322. The practice of the tribes on the Pacific coast is different "In war they do not take scalps, but decapitate the slain and bring in the heads as trophies."—Contributions to Am. Ethnology, by Stephen Powers, Washington, 1877, Vol. III. pp. 21, 221. Vide Vol. I. p. 192. The Yuki are an exception. Vol. III. p. 129.
66. For an account of the sufferings of Brébeuf, Lalemant, and Jogues, see History of Catholic Missions, by John Gilmary Shea, pp. 188, 189, 217.
67. He was gentleman in ordinary to the king's chamber. "Gentil-homme ordinaire de nôstre Chambre."—Vide Commission du Roy au Sieur de Monts, Histoire de la Nouvelle France, par Marc Lescarbot, Paris, 1612, p. 432.
68. Called by the Indians chaousarou. For a full account of this crustacean vide Vol. II. note 343.