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The French were the first white
men who made explorations in the lake region. As early as 1611-12, Sieur de Champlain ascended the chain of lakes as far as Lake Huron. At a period extending from 1620 to 1640,
the Indians were visited by numerous French Catholic priests, among whom were
the celebrated Joliet and Marquette, on the double mission of spreading the
Gospel and promoting the interests of their king and nation. In 1679, La
Salle launched the schooner Griffin in Niagara
River, and sailed with a picked body of men to Green Bay,
in Lake Michigan, as will be found more
fully detailed in the chapter on lake navigation. A french
post was established at Machinaw in 1684, and a
fort and navy on Lake Erie were proposed by
M. de Denonville in 1685, but the idea was not
carried into effect. The dominion of the country was not wholly given over to
the French until 1753. They did a large trade with the Indians by exchanging
beads, goods, provisions, guns and ammunition for furs, which were shipped
across the ocean and sold at an immense profit. Although their possession was
undisturbed, it must not be inferred that it was quietly acquiesced in by the
English. The French claimed that their discovery of the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi entitled
them to the ownership of the territory bordering upon those streams and their
tributaries. The English claim was based upon a grant by King James I, in
1606, to "divers of his subjects, of all the countries between north
latitude 48° and 34°, and westward from the Atlantic Ocean to the South
Sea," and also upon purchases of Western lands made from the Six Nations
by Commissioners from Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia, representing the
mother country. A long and sometimes acrimonious controversy was waged
between the foreign departments of the two nations over the question, and the
leading officers in America,
on both sides, looked upon it as certain to eventually result in war.
The First Soldiers
Previous to 1749, the French had done nothing of an official nature looking
to the occupation of the country between Lake Erie and the Ohio. Their discoverers had taken
possession of it long before in the name of the King, and from that time it
had been a sort of common tramping ground for adventurous traders of both
nations, without being directly subject to the control of either. In the year
named, Capt. Celeron, with a detachment of 300 men,
was sent by the Captain General of Canada
to "renew the French possession" of the Ohio and its tributaries. He came up Lake
Erie to the mouth of Chautauqua Creek, from which point he crossed over to
the Allegheny, by way of Chautauqua Lake and
the Conewango. Descending the Allegheny and the Ohio as far as the
mouth of the Muskingum, he deposited leaden plates
at the mouths of some of the most important streams, as a "monument of
renewal of possession," and as a mark for the guidance of those who
might follow him. One of these plates, buried at the confluence of French
Creek with the Allegheny, was found afterward. The expedition caused much
alarm among the Indians, who regarded it as the beginning of a scheme to
"steal their country," and also created much commotion throughout
the English colonies, whose officials saw in it a purpose to maintain by
force what the French had before contented themselves with claiming in
argument. An extensive correspondence ensued between the Governors of the
several colonies, stirring letters were forwarded to the home Government, and
the movement was universally regarded as the precursor of a long and
sanguinary war. Among other plans proposed on the English side, Gov. Shirley
of Massachusetts suggested the building of
one or two war vessels each on Lakes
Erie and Ontario, for the purpose of keeping the
French in check.
In 1751, an expedition of French and Indians was organized in Canada to proceed to the "Beautiful"
or Ohio River, and in May of that year a part of the force was reported to
have passed Oswego
in thirty canoes. For some reason the venture was abandoned, but warlike
threats and preparations continued for two years.
Army of Occupation
Finally, in the spring of 1753, the long threatened occupation began. Quite a
full account of the expedition is given in a letter preserved among the
Pennsylvania Archives, from M. DuQuesne,
General-in-chief at Montreal, to the French
minister at Paris.
It was in charge of three young officers -- Sieur
Marin, commander, and Maj. Pean and the Chevalier
Mercier, assistants -- and consisted of 250 men. The little army marched up Lake Erie by land and ice to Presque Isle, where it was
decided to build a fort and establish a base of supplies. The reasons which
prompted the selection of Presque Isle were the short portage to Lake Le Boeuf and the facility with which canoes could be floated
down French Creek from the latter to the Allegheny. M. DuQuesne's
letter describes the bay
of Presque Isle as
"a harbor which the largest vessels can enter loaded, and be in perfect
safety. It is," says he, "the finest spot in nature, a bark could
safely enter -- it would be as it were in a box." On the 3d of August
the fort at Presque Isle was finished, the portage road, six leagues long,
was "ready for carriages," the storehouse, half way across, was in
a condition to receive stock, and the fort at LeBoeuf
was nearly completed. No serious trouble was apprehended from the Indians,
who were willingly assisting in the transportation of the stores.
From the same and other authorities we learn that it was the original purpose
to establish the base of supplies at the mouth of Chautauqua Creek, but that
when Marin reached there he did not like the position. He accordingly ordered
Mercier, who was the engineer of the expedition, to proceed to Presque Isle
and report upon its merits. The latter was gone three days, and gave such a
glowing account of the advantages of the location that the army was
immediately ordered forward. Among the members of the expedition was one
Stephen Coffin, an Englishman, who had been taken prisoner by the French and
Indians in 1747, and carried to Canada. When the expedition left Quebec he enlisted in
it, and accompanied his command to Presque Isle. After a military experience
of less than a year he deserted to the English, and on the 10th of January,
1754, made a deposition in which he alleges that the army reached Presque
Isle over 800 strong, a statement that does not correspond with the report of
DuQuesne. The following is an abstract of his
story:
Coffin's Statement
When they arrived at Presque Isle, work was almost immediately commenced on
the fort. It was of chestnut logs, squared, and lapped over each other to the
height of fifteen feet, about 120 feet on the sides, with a log house in each
corner, and had gates in the north and south sides. When the fort was
finished, they began cutting a wagon road to LeBoeuf,
where they commenced getting out boards and timber for another fort. Presque
Isle was left in command of Capt. Deponteney, while
Marin, with the rest of the troops, encamped at LeBoeuf.
From the latter point a detachment of fifty men was sent to the mouth of
French Creek, but finding the Indians hostile to the erection of a fort, it
returned, capturing two English traders on the way, who were sent to Canada in
irons. A few days later, 100 Indians "called by the French Loos," visited LeBoeuf and
arranged to carry some stores to the Allegheny, which they never delivered,
greatly to the disappointment of the French. This and other causes, including
the failure to build the third fort at the mouth of French Creek,
disheartened Marin, who feared that he might forfeit the favor of the
Governor General in consequence. He had been sick for some time, and had to
be moved about in a carriage. Rather than return to Canada in
disgrace, he begged his officers to seat him in the center of the fort, set
it on fire, and let him perish in the flames, which they of course, refused
to do. Marin, according to the deponent, was of a peevish and disagreeable
disposition, and extremely unpopular among his brother officers. Lake in the
fall, Chevalier Le Crake arrived at Presque Isle in a birch canoe worked by
ten men, bearing, among other things, a cross of St. Louis for Marin, which the other
officer would not allow him to take until the Governor General had been
acquainted with his conduct. Near the close of October, all but 300 men to
garrison the fort, were ordered back to Canada. The first detachment went
down the lake in twenty-two batteaux, each
containing twenty men, and were followed in a few days by the balance -- 700
in number. A halt was made at the mouth of Chautauqua Creek, where, with 200
men, a road was cut in four days to Lake Chautauqua,
in the expectation that it might be a more feasible route to the Allegheny
than the one by LeBoeuf. Reaching Niagara,
fifty men were left there to build batteaux for the
army in the spring, and to erect a building for storing provisions. Coffin
places the total number of men who reach Presque Isle during the year at
1,500.
Washington's Visit
Marin died at Le Boeuf soon after the main body of
the troops departed, leaving the forts at Presque Isle and Le Boeuf respectively in charge of Capt. Riparti
and Commander St. Pierre. The latter was visited during the winter by a
gentleman who afterward rose to the first place in American love and history.
This was no less a personage than George Washington, then in his twenty-first
year, who was accompanied by Christopher Gist, an experienced white
frontiersman, and one Indian interpreter. They reached Le Boeuf
on the 11th of December and remained till the 16th, during which time Capt. Riparti was called over from Presque Isle to confer with
Washington and St. Pierre. Washington's treatment, though formal, was
courteous and kind, and he has left on record in his journal a warm
compliment to the gentlemanly character of the French officers. The object
and result of Washington's mission are given in the following letters, the
first being the one he was charged with delivering to the Commander-in-chief
of the French forces by Gov. Dinwiddie, of Virginia, and the second the reply
of St. Pierre:
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Washington did not extend his journey to Presque Isle, feeling, perhaps, that
duty compelled him to report the French answer as speedily as could be done.
Both sides were busily engaged during the winter in preparing for the war
which was now inevitable. The French plan was to establish a chain of
fortifications from Quebec along Lake Ontario and Erie and the water of
French Creek and the Allegheny to the junction of the last-named stream with
the Monongahela, where Pittsburgh now stands, and from there along the Ohio
and Mississippi, to the Gulf of Mexico. Of these, we have already described
the progress at Presque Isle and Le Boeuf. The
forts at Niagara, the mouth of French Creek and the head of the Ohio were
constructed early in 1754. The one at the junction of French Creek and the
Allegheny was known as Fort Machault or Venango, and the one at Pittsburgh as Fort DuQuesne. Provisions and ammunition were sent from Quebec
to Presque Isle, and from there distributed to the lower forts.
Progress of the French
As soon as the weather would permit in the spring of 1754, troops were moved
by both sides in the direction of the Ohio. The first French detachment to
reach Pittsburgh, then known as the "Forks of the Ohio," was on the
17th of April. It was commanded by Contreceur, and
consisted of 1,000 French and Indians, with eighteen cannon. Their voyage
from Le Boeuf down French Creek and the Allegheny
was made in sixty batteaux and 300 canoes. The
English had put up a stockade at the Forks, during the winter, which was
unfinished and guarded only by an ensign and forty-one men. This small body,
seeing the hopelessness of defense, immediately surrendered. On the 3d or 4th
of July, 500 English capitulated to the French at Fort Necessity, in Fayette
County, after an engagement of about ten hours. The French seem to have been
uniformly successful in the campaign of 1754. Deserters from their ranks
reported that the number of French and Indians in the country during the year
was about 2,000, of whom five or six hundred had become unfit for duty.
The records of the campaign show that Presque Isle was regarded by both the
French and English as a post of much importance. DuQuesne,
in a letter from Quebec of July 6, 1755, says: "The fort at Presque Isle
serves as a depot for all others on the Ohio. * * The effects are put on
board pirogues at Fort Le Boeuf. * * At the latter
fort the prairies, which are extensive, furnish only bad hay, but it is easy
to get rid of it. * * At Presque Isle the hay is very abundant and good. The
quantity of pirogues constructed on the River AuBoeuf
has exhausted all the large trees in the neighborhood." It was on the
9th of July, 1755, that Braddock's defeat took place near Pittsburgh, an
event which raised the French hopes to a pitch of the utmost exultation, and
seemed for the time to destroy all prospect of English ascendancy in the
West. From 2,000 to 3,000 French and Indians are supposed to have passed
through Presque Isla during the season.
French Village at Presque Isle
An official letter dated at Montreal, August 8, 1756, says: "The domiciliated Mississaugues of
Presque Isle have been out to the number of ten against the English. They
have taken one prisoner and two scalps, and gave them to cover the loss of M.
de St. Pierre." This officer had been ordered East in the winter of
1753, and was killed in battle near Lake George the ensuing summer. The same
letter reports the small-pox as having prevailed at Presque Isle. A prisoner
who escaped from the Indians during this year described Fort Le Boeuf as "garrisoned with 150 men, and a few
straggling Indians. Presque Isle is built of square logs filled up with
earth; the barracks are within the fort, and garrisoned with 150 men,
supported chiefly from a French settlement begun near it. The settlement
consists of about one hundred families. The Indian families about the
settlement are pretty numerous; they have a priest and schoolmaster, and some
grist mills and stills in the settlement." The village here referred to
was on the east bank of Mill Creek, a little back from the lake, almost on a
line with Parade street.
Events in 1757 and 1758
No events of importance occurred in this section in 1757. The only chronicle
we find relates that some of the Indian warriors aiding the French sent their
families to the neighborhood of Presque Isle for the purpose of planting
corn. A captured French ensign reported in his examination on the 20th of
June that 100 men were in garrison at Presque Isle, and that apprehensions were
felt by them of an attack by the English and Indians. The transportation from
Canada for the troops was mainly by canoes, which were obliged to keep close
to the north shore of the lake. Fort LeBoeuf was in
charge of an ensign of foot. There were from 800 to 900, and sometimes 1,000
men between the forts, 150 of whom were regulars and the rest Canadian
Indians, who worked at the forts and built boats. There were no settlements
nor improvements near the forts, which would indicate that the village at Presque
Isle had been abandoned. The French planted corn about them for the Indians,
whose wives and children came to the forts for it, and were also furnished
with clothing at the King's expense. Traders resided in the forts who bought
peltries of them. Several homes were outside the forts, but people did not
care to occupy them for fear of being scalped. One of the French batteaux usually carried sixty bags of flour and three or
four men; when unloaded they would carry twelve men.
A journal written in November, 1758, gives this description of the two forts,
on the authority of an Indian who had just come in: "Presque Isle has
been a strong stockaded fort, but is so much out of
repair that a strong man might pull up any log out of the earth. There are
two officers and thirty-five men in garrison there, and not above ten
Indians, which they keep constantly hunting for the support of the garrison.
The fort on LeBoeuf River is in much the same
condition, with an officer and thirty men, and a few hunting Indians, who
said they would leave there in a few days."
The English Gaining
During the year 1758, the English made sufficient progress in the direction
of the Ohio to compel the French to evacuate Fort DuQuesne
on the 22d of November, their artillery being sent down the river, and the
larger part of the garrison retiring up the Allegheny. A letter dated
Montreal, March 30, 1759, announces that the French troops at Detroit had
been ordered to rendezvous at Presque Isle, in order to be ready to aid Fort Machault if necessary, the commander at the latter being
required, if too hard pressed, to fall back on Le Boeuf.
The Indians, by this time, had lost confidence in the triumph of the French,
and many were either siding with the English or pretending to be neutral. One
of them, employed by the English as a spy at the lakes, reached Pittsburgh
during March, and gave some additional particulars of the fort at Presque
Isle. "It is," he said, "square with four bastions. * * The
wall is only of single logs, with no bank within -- a ditch without. * * *
The magazine is a stone house covered with shingles, and not sunk in the
ground, standing in the right bastion, next the lake. * * The other houses
are of square logs." Fort Le Boeuf he
described as of "the same plan, but very small -- the logs mostly
rotten. Platforms are erected in the bastions, and loopholes properly cut;
one gun is mounted in a bastion, and looks down the river. It has only one
gate, and that faces the side opposite the creek. The magazine is on the
right of the gate, going in, partly sunk in the ground, and above are some
casks of powder to serve the Indians. Here are two officers, a storekeeper,
clerk, priest, and 150 soldiers, who have no employment. * * * The road from Venango to LeBoeuf is well
trodden; from there to Presque Isle is very low and swampy, and bridged most
of the way."
Evacuation of the French
The tide of battle continued to favor the English, and they finally besieged
Fort Niagara below Buffalo, compelling the French to withdraw 1,200 men from
Detroit, Presque Isle and Venango for its defense.
Its capture by the English astonished and terrified the French in this
section. A messenger reached Presque Isle from Sir William Johnson, the
victorious English commander, notifying the officer in charge that the other
posts must surrender in a few days. The French knew that their force was too
small to copy with the enemy, and began making hasty preparations for
departure. Their principal stores at Presque Isle were sent up the lake
August 13, 1759, and the garrison waited a brief time for their comrades at
Le Boeuf and Venango when
the entire army left in batteaux for Detroit. An
Indian, who arrived at DuQuesne soon after,
reported that they had burned all of the forts, but this is questioned by
some of the authorities. Upon taking their departure, they told the
aborigines that they had been driven away by superior numbers, but would
return in sufficient force to hold the country permanently.
English Dominion
The English did not take formal possession of Forts Presque Isle and Le Boeuf until 1760, when Maj.Rogers
was sent out for that purpose. Hostilities between the two nations continued,
but the bloody wave of war did not reach Western Pennsylvania. A treaty of
peace was signed at Paris in 1763, by which the French ceded Canada and
confirmed the Western country to the British Crown. The Indians did not take
kindly to the British. They were hopeful of the return of the French, and
meditated the driving of the victorious rivals out of the country. In June,
1763, the great Indian uprising known as "Pontiac's Conspiracy"
occurred, which resulted in the destruction of all but four of the frontier
posts. Fort Le Boeuf fell on the 18th and Fort
Presque Isle on the 22d of that month, as will be found more fully described
in the chapter devoted to the Indians. Col. Bradstreet, with a small army,
arrived at Presque Isle on the 12th of August, 1764, and met a band of
Shawnees and Delawares, who agreed to articles of
peace and friendship. From there he marched to Detroit, where another treaty
was made with the Northwestern Indians. These proceedings seem to have been
entered into by the savages merely as a deception, for in a short time they
renewed hostilities. Another expedition, under Col. Boquet,
was fitted out, and punished the troublesome tribes so severely that they
were glad to accept the conditions offered them.
The independence of the United States was acknowledged by Great Britain in
1783. By the treaty of peace the mother country abandoned all pretensions to
the western region. Her officers in Canada, however, still retained a hope of
the ultimate return of the colonies to the protection of the British Crown.
The English had, by this date, won the confidence of the Indians, who were
kept hostile to the Americans by representations that Great Britain would yet
resume possession of the country. As late as 1785, Mr. Adams, our minister at
London, complained to the English Secretary of State, that though two years
had elapsed since the definitive treaty, the forts of Presque Isle, Niagara,
and elsewhere on the Northern frontier were still held by British garrisons.
The actual American occupation dates from 1795.
The French and English Forts
Little remains to be added to the various statements above, descriptive of
the French forts. Fort Presque Isle stood on the bluff overlooking the mouth
of Mill Creek, on the western side, about 350 feet back from the shore of the
bay. The British put it in repair and occupied it till after our independence
was acknowledged, by which time it had almost gone to ruin. Its site was
easily traceable as late as 1863, by mounds and depressions on the bank of
the lake near the mouth of the creek.
The fort at LeBoeuf stood within the present limits
of Waterford Borough, on the brow of the hill above LeBoeuf
Creek, nearly in line with the iron bridge across that stream. A ravine,
which has since been partially filled up, extended along its north side, down
which flowed a rivulet, leading Washington to describe the fort as standing
on "a kind of an island." Practically the same site was
successively occupied by the English and Americans.
The French Road
The French road commenced at the mouth of Mill Creek, where a warehouse
stood, extended up that stream a short distance, and then struck off to the
higher land, nearly following the line of Parade street, on its west side,
through the city limits of Erie. A branch road led from the south gate of the
fort, and connected with the main road in the hollow of Mill Creek. From the
southern end of Parade street the latter ran across Mill Creek Township to
the present Waterford plank road. The road that begins in Marvintown
opposite the old Seib stand, and terminates at the
farm of Judge Souther, is almost identical with the
French thoroughfare. Leaving the Waterford plank, the French road took across
the hills into Summit Township, which it crossed entirely, entering Waterford
Township on the Charles Skinner place, and terminating at the gate of Fort LeBoeuf, about where Judson's Hotel stands. The route
known as the French road in Summit is understood to be exactly on the line of
its historical original. The road was laid out thirty feet wide, and was
"corduroyed" throughout most of its length. It was easily traced
when the first American settlers came in, was partially adopted by them, and
portions of it, as above stated, are in use to this day.
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