from Niagara to St. Clair, by a projection of a cape or peninsula two-thirds across the lake. Hennepin places and delineates Long Point with reasonable accuracy.

We have mentioned La Hontan, whom we have had occasion to cite elsewhere. His letters include the period of 1683-'93, and are racy productions. He also explored Lake Erie. Not to be outdone by his gray-coated predecessor, he describes Niagara as "seven or eight hundred foot high and half a league broad." After entering Lake Erie, his party coasted along the north coast, "being favored by the calms," for it was August, 1687. "Upon the brink of this lake (he says) we frequently saw flocks of fifty or sixty Turkeys, which run incredibly fast upon the sands, and the savages of our company kill'd great numbers of 'em, which they gave to us in exchange for the fish that we catched. The 25th we arrived at a long point of land which shoots out 14 or 15 leagues into the Lake, and the heat being excessive we chose to transport our boats and baggage two hundred paces over land, rather than coast about for thirty-five leagues." On the 6th of September, La Hontan entered the Straits of St. Clair, and pursued his western route, whither we will not follow him.

CHAPTER V.

THE FRENCH ESTABLISH FORT SANDUSKY—THE ENGLISH EX PLORE THE OHIO VALLEY.

WE have given a synopsis of French discovery in the west. These explorations were promptly followed by settlements. In 1701, soon after the peace between the Iroquois and the French in Canada, the latter effected a settlement at Detroit. The party that first took possession of that important position were De la Motte Cadillac, with a Jesuit missionary and one hundred Frenchmen. The fort, which, by its early establishment, made Michigan the oldest of the inland States, except perhaps Illinois, soon became the centre of a valuable trade with the Indians, and the Hurons returned to its vicinity from their fifty years' exile, while above, in Upper Canada, was a colony of Ottawas. Thence, as we have shown, these tribes, who became inseparable companions, soon extended to the Sandusky Basin, where they were firmly established long before any European exploration of the country south of Lake Erie.

At New Orleans and in Illinois were the principal seats of the French in the valley of the Mississippi. As early as 1729, the settlers in the vicinity of New Orleans amounted to nearly six thousand, although a third of that number were slaves; while on the Mississippi, near the Illinois, there were in 1750, five French villages, containing one hundred and forty families, and three villages of colonized natives, numbering not less than six hundred.

Prior to 1750, the communication between Canada and Louisiana was carried on by the distant routes of Green Bay and the Wisconsin, Lake Michigan and the Illinois, and more recently by the Maumee and the Wabash, which latter river was regarded by the French as the main stream to which the Ohio was but a tributary. At the straits of Michillimacinac and the mouth of the St. Josephs river, at the head of Green Bay, and on the site of Fort Wayne, were French settlements, convenient for Indian traffic and contributing to the armed occupation of the country. There is some doubt whether Fort Miamis on the Maumee, (now Fort Wayne,) was founded before 1750, but it is mentioned by Vaudrueil, then Governor of Louisiana and afterwards of Canada, as existing in 1751. Its real date is probably contemporaneous with Fort Sandusky, namely, 1750. Detroit, a post of great importance, had been occupied since 1701.

It was nearly fifty years after the settlement of Detroit by the French, that the attention of France or England was turned to the region between Lake Erie and the Ohio River. Perhaps its dense forests repelled the luxurious Gaul, while the savannahs nearer the Mississippi tempted his occupation. But at length a dispute arose, with the increasing strength of the colonies, about the respective limits of the Atlantic colonies and of Louisiana. Under the treaties of Utrecht and Aix la Chapelle, England claimed that the valley of the lakes and the country east of the Mississippi should be recognized as an Iroquois conquest, and by compact with those tribes, as under the protectorate or dominion (in our days the terms are yet synonyms) of Great Britain. In reply, France cited discovery and occupation-the history of a hundred years of missions, expeditions and colonization. The missions had declined, but the Indian trade continued, and

their posts, planted at the most eligible positions from Detroit to New Orleans, were regular garrisons, relieved once in six years. The boats from the Illinois country, descending annually to New Orleans, carried flour, Indian corn, bacon, both of hog and bear, beef and pork, buffalo robes, hides and tallow. The downward voyage was made in December; in February the boat returned with European goods for consumption and Indian traffic. The Northwestern Indians were almost universally in the French interest. As respected the country on the upper lakes, the Mississippi, the Illinois, and the Wabash, the French title, according to European usage, was complete. To forestall the English pretensions to the country immediately south of Lake Erie, the Count de la Galissonniere, shortly after assuming office as Governor General of Canada, sent Monsieur Celeron de Bienville, in 1749, with three hundred men, to traverse the country from Detroit east to the mountains, to bury at the most important points, leaden plates with the arms of France engraved, to take possession with a formal process verbal, and to warn the English traders out of the country.2

As will more fully appear in the sequel, the French, in the winter of 1750-'51, followed their formal claim to the territory between Lake Erie and the Ohio, which the exploring party of Celeron de Bienville had reasserted, by taking actual occupation of the northern frontier. This was done by founding a fort and trading station at Sandusky.

Meanwhile, the English colonies of Pennsylvania and Virginia, deeply interested in the trade and pacification of the Ohio Indians, no less than in the political questions at issue, were far from inactive. One George Croghan, an English

1) Hildreth's History United States, II, 434.
2) See Appendix, No. II.

trader, was also an envoy from the Government of Pennsylvania-distributing, on one occasion, goods to the value of a thousand pistoles among the Indians settled on the Ohio and Miami rivers. Licenses to trade with the Indian tribes even to the Mississippi, were also granted by the Governor of Pennsylvania.3 As early as June, 1744, the colonies of Pennsylvania, Virginia and Maryland, went through another ceremonial of receiving from a deputation of Iroquois, at Lancaster, "a deed recognizing the King's right to all lands beyond the mountains." Still stimulated by a sense of danger from the French and their Indian allies, Pennsylvania, at the instigation of Benjamin Franklin, organized her militia.

We have now reached, in order of time, the organization of the Ohio Land Company of 1748, the exploration of Christopher Gist, and our first item of circumstantial evidence as to the period when Fort Sandusky was built and occupied by the French. In 1748, Thomas Lee, with twelve other Virginians, among whom were Lawrence and Augustine, brothers of George Washington, and also Mr. Hanbury, of London, formed an association which was called the "Ohio Company," and petitioned the King for a grant of lands beyond the mountains. This petition was approved by the monarch, and the government of Virginia was ordered to grant the petitioners half a million of acres within the bounds of that colony, beyond the Alleghanies, two hundred thousand of which were to be located at once. This portion was to be held for ten years free of quit-rent, provided the company would put there one hundred families within seven years, and build a

3) In 1749, La Jonquiere, the governor of Canada, learned to his great indignation, that several English traders had reached Sandusky, and were exerting a bad influence upon the Indians of that quarter; and two years later he caused four of the intruders to be seized near the Ohio and sent prisoners to Canada.”—Parkman's Pontiac, 64.