[30]. For the early history of Detroit, see Croghan’s Journals, vol. i of our series, note 18.—Ed.
[31]. An account of these battles is given in Evans’s Tour, post, note 63.—Ed.
[32]. Buttrick was now in the Black Swamp; for a description of which, see Evans’s Tour, post.—Ed.
[33]. General Wayne built a fort at Greenville, seventy miles north of Cincinnati, in December, 1793, and marched thence against the Indians. He made it his headquarters after the victory at Fallen Timbers, and there (August, 1795), the treaty of peace was signed. The village was laid out in 1808.—Ed.
[34]. Portland, falling within the Connecticut “firelands,” was laid out by Zalmon Wildman of Danbury, Connecticut, in 1816, in the centre of his tract. A few years later the plat was enlarged and the name changed to Sandusky City.—Ed.
[35]. This island, twelve miles north-west of Sandusky City, owed its first name to a French Indian trader called Cunningham, who lived there from 1808 to 1812. It contained few inhabitants—only six acres having been cleared—when in 1833 the greater part of it was purchased by Datus and Irad Kelley. In 1840 the name was by legislative enactment changed to Kelley’s Island.—Ed.
[36]. It is an inflammation of the conjunctiva, with a purulent discharge.—Ed.
[37]. Geneva was originally the site of a populous Seneca village. Lying within the Phelps and Gorham Purchase, it was surveyed by them in 1789; settlement began immediately, the village containing fifteen houses in 1791. In 1797 a newspaper, Ontario Gazette and Genesee Advertiser, was established. Geneva was incorporated, June, 1812.—Ed.
[38]. The Erie Canal was constructed in three sections; the middle section, extending from Seneca River to Utica, being completed by 1820. The history of the construction of this canal is most interesting. As early as 1808 the legislature ordered a survey of a feasible route. Two years later a board of canal commissioners was established. Unsuccessful in appealing to the national government for aid, DeWitt Clinton presented an elaborate memorial to the legislature (1816), signed also by the other commissioners. The bill authorizing its construction was passed in April, 1817, and work was begun at Rome on July 4 following. It was completed in 1825 and opened with much ceremony.—Ed.
[39]. Here was at one time an important Mohawk village, the capital of the Five Nations. In 1662 Van Curler and certain other Dutchmen in Albany and Renselaerswyck bought the land from the Mohawk and founded the present city of Schenectady. Being a frontier town, it suffered severely in the early Indian wars, and in February, 1690, a general massacre of the inhabitants occurred.—Ed.