Chapter 3

The French built forts at Detroit, Niagara and Toronto to intercept the beaver traffic, which otherwise might be shared by the English on the Hudson and Mohawk rivers; but for nearly a hundred and fifty years no settlement was attempted on the north shore. References to the region are few and scanty. Travellers did not penetrate into the country. Coasting along the shore in canoes on their way to Detroit, they landed as rarely as possible for shelter or repose. There were forest paths well known to the Indians, by which they portaged their canoes and goods from one water stretch to another. One of these led from the site of Dundas to a point on the Grand River near Cainsville; another from the latter stream to the Thames River near Woodstock; and a third from the upper waters of the Thames to Lake Huron. Besides these, there was a trail from the Huntly farm in Southwold on the River Thames (Lot 11, Con. 1,) to the mouth of Kettle Creek; and a fifth from the Rondeau to M'Gregor's Creek near Chatham. These were thoroughfares of travel and of such rude commerce as was carried on by the savages with their French and English neighbors.

THE FRENCH EXPLORATION.

Joliet was the first Frenchman to descend Lake Erie from Detroit. He had been sent by Talon to investigate the copper mines of Lake Superior. He returned to Quebec in the autumn of 1669 by way of the lower lakes, instead of taking the usual route by the French River and the Ottawa. At the mouth of Kettle Creek he hid his canoe. Thence he portaged, doubtless by the well-known trails to the Thames and Grand rivers, until he reached Burlington Bay.[5]

[5] This is the most probable inference from the facts stated by Galinee.

At the Seneca village of Tinaouatoua, midway between the Bay and the Grand River, he met La Salle and the Sulpician priests, Dollier de Casson and Galinee on their way to Lake Erie and the Ohio River. The result of the meeting and of the information given by Joliet was that the priests altered their purpose and decided to proceed to Sault Ste. Marie and then to the Pottamatamies, where they would establish their mission: whilst La Salle, who evidently was dissatisfied with his companions, went back with Joliet and, it is now pretty generally believed, discovered the Ohio by journeying overland from the Seneca villages south of Lake Ontario during the winter or the following spring. Joliet gave the missionaries a description of his route, from which Galinee was able to make a map which was of great assistance in the further progress of their expedition.[6] The priests descended the Grand River to Lake Erie, and wintered at the forks of Patterson's Creek, where Port Dover now stands. After a sojourn of five months and eleven days, during which they were visited in their cabin by Iroquois beaver hunters, they proceeded westward along the north shore of the lake. Losing one of their canoes in a storm, they were obliged to divide their party. Four men with the luggage proceeded in the two remaining canoes. Five of the party, including apparently the two priests, made the wearisome journey on foot from Long Point all the way to the mouth of Kettle Creek, where on the tenth of April, 1670, they found Joliet's canoe, and the party was reunited for the rest of the long journey to the Sault. Upon leaving their winter abode however the whole party had first proceeded to the lake shore, and there on the 23rd March 1670, being Passion Sunday, planted a cross, as a memorial of their long sojourn, and offered a prayer. The official record is as follows:

"We the undersigned certify that we have seen affixed on the lands of the lake called Erie the arms of the King of France with this inscription: The year of salvation 1669, Clement IX. being seated in St. Peter's chair, Louis XIV. reigning in France, M. de Courcelle being governor of New France, and M. Talon being intendant therein for the King, there arrived in this place two missionaries from Montreal accompanied by seven other Frenchmen, who, the first of all European peoples, have wintered on this lake, of which, as of a territory not occupied, they have taken possession in the name of their King by the apposition of his arms, which they have attached to the foot of this cross. In witness whereof we have signed the present certificate."

"FRANCOIS DOLLIER, Priest of the Diocese of Nantes in Brittany. DE GALINEE, Deacon of the Diocese of Rennes in Brittany."

[6] Galinee's map is reproduced in Faillon's Histoire de la Colonie Francaise.

Galinee grows enthusiastic over the abundance of game and wild fruits opposite Long Point. The grapes were as large and as sweet as the finest in France. The wine made from them was as good as _vin de grave_. He admires the profusion of walnuts, chestnuts, wild apples and plums. Bears were fatter and better to the palate than the most "savory" pigs in France. Deer wandered in herds of 50 to 100. Sometimes even 200 would be seen feeding together. In his enthusiasm the good priest calls this region "the terrestrial paradise of Canada."

Fortunately for the explorers, the winter was as mild at Port Dover as it was severe at Montreal. Patterson's Creek was however still frozen over on the 26th March, when, having portaged their goods and canoes to the lake, they embarked to resume their westward journey. They had to pass two streams before they arrived at the sand beach which connected Long Point with the mainland. To effect the first crossing they walked four leagues inland before they found a satisfactory spot. To cross Big Creek, they were obliged to spend a whole day constructing a raft. They were further delayed by a prolonged snow storm and a strong north wind. On the west bank was a meadow more than 200 paces wide, in passing over which they were immersed to their girdles in mud and slash. Arriving at the sandy ridge which then connected Long Point with the mainland, they found the lake on the other side full of floating ice, and concluded that their companions had not ventured to proceed in their frail barques. They encamped near the sandbar and waited for the canoes, which had doubtless been delayed by the weather. The missionaries put themselves on short rations in order to permit the hunters to keep up their strength for the chase, and were rewarded with a stag as the result. As it was Holy Week the whole party decided not to leave the spot until they had kept their Easter together. On the Tuesday following, which was the eighth day of April, they heard mass and, although the lake had still a border of ice, they launched their canoe, and continued their journey as before, five of the party going by land. When they arrived at "the place of the canoe," on the 10th great was their disappointment to find that the Iroquois had anticipated them and carried it away. Later in the day however it was found, hidden between two large trees on the other side of a stream. The discoverers came upon it unexpectedly whilst looking for dry wood to make a fire, and bore it in triumph to the lake. The hunters were out the whole day without seeing any game. For five or six days the party subsisted on boiled maize, no meat being obtainable. Being provided now with three canoes, the party paddled up the lake in one day to a place where game was abundant. The hunters saw more than 200 deer in a single herd, but missed their aim. In their craving for flesh-meat, they shot and skinned a poor wolf and had it ready for the kettle, when one of their men perceived twenty or thirty deer "on the other side of a small lake on the shore of which we were."[7] The deer were surrounded and forced into the water, where 10 were killed, the rest being permitted to escape. Well supplied with fresh and smoked meat they went on nearly twenty leagues (about fifty miles) in one day, "as far as a long point which you will find marked in the map of Lake Erie. We arrived there on a beautiful sand-beach on the east side of this point."[8] Here disaster overtook them. They had drawn up their canoes beyond high water mark, but left their goods on the sand near the water, whilst they camped for the night. A terrific gale came up from the north-east, and the water of the lake rose until it swept with violence over the beach. One of the party was awakened by the roaring of the waves and wind and aroused the rest, who attempted to save their supplies. Groping with torches along the shore, they succeeded in securing the cargo of Galinee's canoe, and of one of Dollier's. The other canoe load was lost, including provisions, goods for bartering, ammunition, and, most important of all, the altar service, with which they intended establishing their mission among the Pottawatamies. The question was debated whether they should take up their mission with some other tribe, or go back to Montreal for a new altar service and supplies, and, returning at a later period, establish themselves wherever they should then determine. Deciding in favor of the latter view, they concluded that the return journey would be as short by way of the Sault and the French River as by the route which they had followed from the east. In favor of this decision was the further consideration that not only would they see a new country but they would have the escort of the Ottawas who were assembling at the Sault for their annual trading visit to Montreal and Quebec. Galinee continues: "We pursued our journey accordingly towards the west, and after having made about 100 leagues on Lake Erie arrived at the place where the _Lake of the Hurons_, otherwise called the _Fresh-water Sea of the Hurons_, or the Michigan, discharges itself into that lake. This outlet is perhaps half a league wide and turns sharply to the north-east, so that we were in a measure retracing our steps; at the end of six leagues we found a place that was very remarkable and held in great veneration by all the savages of these regions, because of a stone idol of natural formation, to which they say they owe the success of their navigation on Lake Erie when they have crossed it without accident, and which they appease by sacrifices, presents of skins, provisions, etc., when they wish to embark on it."

[7] Evidently the Rondeau.

[8] This was Point Pelee.

"This place was full of huts of those who had come to pay homage to this idol, which had no other resemblance to a human figure than that which the imagination chose to give it. However it was painted all over, and a kind of face had been formed for it with vermillion. I leave you to imagine whether we avenged upon this idol, which the Iroquois had strongly recommended us to honor, the loss of our chapel."

"We attributed to it even the scarcity of food from which we had suffered up to that time. In fine there was nobody whose hatred it had not incurred. I consecrated one of my hatchets to break this god of stone, and then having locked canoes we carried the largest piece to the middle of the river, and immediately cast the remainder into the water, that it might never be heard of again."

"God rewarded us forthwith for this good act: for we killed a deer that same day, and four leagues farther we entered a little lake about ten leagues long and almost as wide, called by Mr. Sanson the _Lake of the Salted Waters_, but we saw no sign of salt. From this lake we entered the outlet of Lake Michigan, which is not a quarter of a league in width."

"At last ten or twelve leagues farther on, we entered the largest lake in all America, called here "the Fresh-water Sea of the Hurons," or in Algonkin, _Michigan_. It is 600 to 700 leagues in circuit. We made on this lake 200 leagues and were afraid of falling short of provisions, the shores of the lake being apparently very barren. God, however, did not wish that we should lack for food in his service."

"For we were never more than one day without food. It is true that several times we had nothing left, and had to pass an evening and morning without having anything to put into the kettle, but I did not see that any one was discouraged or put to prayers (_sic_) on that account. For we were so accustomed to see that God succored us mightily in emergencies, that we awaited with tranquility the effects of his goodness, thinking that He who nourished so many barbarians in these woods would not abandon his servants."

"We passed this lake without any peril and entered the _Lake of the Hurons_, which communicates with it by four mouths, each nearly two leagues in width."

"At last we arrived on the 25th May, the day of Pentecost, at Ste. Marie of the Sault, where the Jesuit fathers have made their principal establishment for the missions to the Ottawas and neighboring tribes."

Here they found fathers D'Ablon and Marquette in charge of the mission, with a fort consisting of a square of cedar posts, enclosing a chapel and residence. They had cleared and seeded a large piece of ground. The Sulpicians remained only three days and then hired an experienced guide to take them to Montreal, where they arrived on the 18th June after a fatiguing journey of twenty-two days. They had been absent since the 6th July 1669, and were welcomed as if they had come to life again after being dead. It was their intention to return in the following spring and renew their search for the Ohio River, where they purposed establishing a mission; but this intention was never carried into effect.

"This famous voyage," says Dean Harris in his interesting 'History of the Early Missions in Western Canada,' "stimulated to an extraordinary degree enthusiasm for discovery, and in the following year Talon sent out expeditions to the Hudson Bay, the Southern Sea, and into the Algonquin country to the north." Marquette, Tonty, Hennepin, Du Lhut, La Salle and Perrot explored the Mississippi valley, and the head waters of the St. Lawrence system, and almost the entire continent was claimed by the French as belonging to New France. As far as appears, there were no Indians having settled abodes on the north shore of Lake Erie for more than a century after the expulsion of the Neutrals. Nor does any attempt appear to have been made by the whites to explore south-western Ontario until the close of the last century. The Iroquois continued for a long period to range its forests for beaver in the winter. The rivalry between the French and the English for the control of the vast western fur trade led to the erection of outposts by the English at Oswego and by the French at Cataraqui, Niagara, Detroit and Michilimakinac, during the latter part of the 17th century. English traders sailed or paddled up the lakes to get their share of the traffic, and were from time to time summarily arrested and expelled by their rivals. Both parties tried to ingratiate themselves with the natives. The French were as eager to maintain a state of warfare between the Iroquois and the Indians of the upper Lakes--the Hurons, Ottawas, Pottawatamies, Ojibways etc.--as to induce the former to keep the peace with the white inhabitants of Canada. There were two great trade routes to Montreal, viz: by Mackinac, the Georgian Bay and the French and Ottawa River and by Detroit, Lake Erie and Niagara; the Lake Simcoe portage routes by the Trent River system, and the Holland River and Toronto were also used. Trading or military parties, under the leadership of La Salle, Tonty, Perrot, Du Lhut, Cadaillac, passed along the coast of L. Erie in canoes; but little record if any remained of their visits to the shores. Kettle Creek was long called the Tonty River. It is so named in one of Bellin's maps of 1755, and by the Canadian Land Board at Detroit as lately as 1793. The only northern tributaries of Lake Erie to which names are given on the map of 1755 are the Grand River, River D'Ollier (Patterson's Creek), which in some maps is called the River of the Wintering--a manifest reference to Galinee and Dollier de Casson's sojourn in 1669-70--the River a la Barbue (Catfish Creek), the River Tonty (Kettle Creek) a little east of P'te au Fort (Plum Point or else Port Talbot) and the River aux Cedres (M'Gregor's Creek in Essex). The Thames is described as a "River unknown to all geographers, and which you go up eighty leagues without finding any rapids (_saults_)." The Chenail Ecarte is indicated as the only outlet of the Sydenham river the map-makers assuming that Walpole Island was part of the mainland. The mouths of four or five streams are shown between Long Point and "the Little Lake" (Rondeau), and the shore is marked "The High Cliffs." "The Low Cliffs" were between the Rondeau and Point Pelee. In one of Bellin's maps of 1755 in the present writer's possession Long Point is shown as a peninsula, and the streams now in the County of Elgin are marked "Unknown Rivers," but the map firstly mentioned and published in the same year, is more complete, represents Long Point as an island, and names the Barbue and Tonty rivers and Fort Point, (_P'te au Fort_) which are not named in the other. The Tonty, moreover, is represented as an inlet by way of distinction from the other streams (including the Barbue) which appear as of equal insignificance. The naming of Kettle Creek after the great explorer and devoted lieutenant of La Salle indicates its consequence. Its harbor was of paramount importance to the navigation of these early days, but no doubt the portage route extending from its mouth to the Thames, exalted the little river in the eyes of the explorers who honored it with Tonty's name.[9]

[9] General John S. Clarke, of Auburn, N.Y., in correspondence with the present writer, dwells upon the importance of the Kettle Creek portage route in the seventeenth century. He is a recognized authority upon the subject of Indian trade routes.

THE INDIAN TITLE.

On July 19th, 1701, the Iroquois ceded to the British the entire country between the lakes, "including the country where beavers and all sorts of wild game keep, and the place called De Tret,"[10] but this appears to have been a mere formality as no possession was taken by the purchasers.

[10] History of Middlesex County, p. 17.

The Ojibways have a tradition that they defeated the Iroquois (called by them the Nottawas or Nahdoways) in a succession of skirmishes, ending in a complete victory at the outlet of Burlington Bay, and the final expulsion of the Six Nations from that part of Ontario between the Great Lakes. The Ojibways then spread east and west over the country. "A treaty of peace and friendship was then made with the Nahdoways residing on the south side of Lake Ontario, and both nations solemnly covenanted, by going through the usual forms of burying the tomahawk, smoking the pipe of peace, and locking their hands and arms together, agreeing in future to call each other _Brothers_. Thus ended their war with the Nahdoways."[11]

[11] "Peter Jones and the Ojebway Indians," p. 113.

Whatever may be the truth of the details, there is no doubt of the fact that the Ojibways or their kindred the Mississagas were the sole occupants of Western Ontario at the time of the conquest in 1759, except near the Detroit River where the remnant of the Hurons or Wyandots had settled. It was with the Mississagas that the British negotiated in 1784 for the cession of the country from the "head of the Lake Ontario or the Creek Waghguata to the River La Tranche, then down the river until a south course will strike the mouth of Cat Fish Creek on Lake Erie." On the 21st May, 1790, Alexander M'Kee announced to the Land-board at Detroit the cession to the Crown by the Indians of that part of Upper Canada west of the former grant. The surrender of the Indian title opened the way in each division of the lake shore district for settlement.[12]

NOTE.--The explanatory notes referring to the extract are by the late Leonidas Burwell, M.P.P., and are given by him in a letter to His Honor, Judge Hughes, which has been kindly presented by the recipient to the Elgin Historical and Scientific Institute.

[12] The north shore of Lake Erie appears to have been so little known to the officials, that Kettle Creek and Cat Fish Creek were continually confused and taken as being one or different streams as chance would have it. The Land-board considered that a surrender of the lands west of Kettle Creek gave the Crown all the territory not previously ceded. The Indians at Detroit who made the cession were the Ojibways, Hurons, Ottawas and Pottawatamies.

CHARLEVOIX'S DESCRIPTION.

In the year 1721 the distinguished traveller, Charlevoix, passed through Lake Erie on his way up the Lakes and thence down the Mississippi to New Orleans. The north shore of Lake Erie, and chiefly that part now embraced within the limits of the County of Elgin, is singled out by him as the most beautiful country he met with in his passage. Many travellers since Charlevoix have admired the charming scenery at the mouths of Otter, Catfish, Kettle and Talbot Creeks, but few if any have described it so well. As Colonel Talbot was influenced mainly by Charlevoix's description of the country to establish his settlement at the outlet of Talbot Creek in 1803, the present writer makes no apology for reproducing the following extended passage from the celebrated and gifted traveller:

"The 28th May, 1721, I went eighteen leagues and found myself over against the _great river_ which comes from the East in forty-two degrees fifteen minutes. Nevertheless the great trees were not yet green. This country appeared to me to be very fine. We made very little way the 29th and none at all the 30th. We embarked the next day about sun rise, and went forward apace. The first of June being Whitsunday, after going up a pretty river almost an hour which comes a great way, and runs between two fine meadows, we made a portage about sixty paces to escape going round a point which advances fifteen leagues into the lake: they call it the _Long Point_. It is very sandy and produces naturally many vines."[13]

[13] This river is what is now known as "Big Creek" and, answers this description at the present day. It enters the lake a little above Fort Rowan.

"The following days I saw nothing remarkable, but I coasted a charming country that was hid from time to time by some disagreeable skreens, but of little depth. In every place where I landed I was enchanted with the beauty and variety of landscape bounded by the finest forest in the world; besides this water fowl swarmed everywhere. I cannot say there is such plenty of game in the woods: but I know that on the south side there are vast herds of wild cattle."[14]

[14] This charming country is evidently, the greater part of it, the County of Elgin, as the portage is not more than thirteen miles from the boundary line of Bayham. In passing up the lake one would meet with a great variety of landscape as the sand-hills in Houghton and the mouths of the Otter, Catfish and other creeks would be passed. The lofty pines and chestnuts and oaks along this coast, in their original state no doubt appeared like the "finest forest in the world."

"If one always travelled as I did then, with a clear sky and charming climate on water as bright as the finest fountain, and were to meet everywhere with safe and pleasant encampings, where one might find all manner of game at little cost, breathing at one's ease a pure air, and enjoying the sight of the finest countries, one would be tempted to travel all one's life."