Читать книгу The Picturesque St. Lawrence - Clifton 1865-1940 Johnson - Страница 6

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On the Canadian side of the river, where the St. Lawrence leaves Lake Ontario and begins to thread its way among the intricacies of the Thousand Islands, stands the historic city of Kingston. Here was established a wilderness outpost in the days of the early French dominion. Count Frontenac, then Governor of New France, selected the site in 1673 and erected a strong wooden blockhouse to protect the fur trade between Montreal and the northwestern wilds. Accompanied by about four hundred men, including a considerable proportion of mission Indians, he came himself from Quebec to see the work done. The journey was made in a hundred and twenty canoes and two large flat-boats. These flat-boats were painted with strange devices in red and blue that the Iroquois who had been invited to a council might be dazzled by the unwonted display of splendor.

The council met where the city now is, and there was speech-making and much flattery and many fine promises. Frontenac gave presents of guns and tobacco to the braves, and raisins to the women and children; and in the evenings he feasted the squaws to make them dance.

Meanwhile Frontenac's followers had begun the fort. Some cut down trees, some dug the trenches, some hewed the palisades; and the Iroquois were greatly astonished at the orderliness and alacrity with which the work proceeded. When Fort Frontenac, as it was called, had been completed, a guard was left in the lonely outpost provisioned for a twelve-month, and the rest of the expedition departed down the river.

The next year, by act of the King of France, Fort Frontenac and its vicinity was turned over to La Salle, the future explorer of the Mississippi, on condition that he pay back ten thousand francs the fort had cost the king, maintain the stronghold at his own charge, form a French colony about it, build a church whenever the inhabitants should reach one hundred, and form a settlement of domesticated Indians in the neighborhood.

La Salle promptly accepted the responsibility, began his tasks, and was in a fair way to make his fortune, so favorable was the situation for the fur trade. He was master of all around him, the nearest settlement being a week's journey distant. Within two years he demolished the original fort and replaced it with another that had ramparts and bastions of stone on the land side, and palisades fronting the water. Nine small cannon were mounted on the walls. It contained barracks, a forge, a well, a mill and a bakery. About fifteen persons constituted the garrison, and there were in addition two or three score laborers and canoe-men, the latter reputed to be the best in America. Along the shore south of the fort was a small hamlet of French farms, and farther on, a village of Iroquois whom La Salle had persuaded to settle here. Considerable land had been cleared and planted, cattle, swine and fowls had been brought up from Montreal, and three small vessels had been built to ply on the lake in the interest of the fur trade.

But the autocrat of this little empire was not content. He would explore the great valley of the Mississippi and add it to the French domain in the New World. So late in the year 1678 he left all prospects of wealth and comfort and began the long journey that was to end only with his death in the wilds of Texas.

The years passed without any events of serious significance occurring at Fort Frontenac until 1687. There had been, however, a good deal of trouble with the Iroquois, and the French became suspicious of the inhabitants of two Indian villages on the north shore of Lake Ontario. These Indians had maintained a strict neutrality and were in the habit of hunting and fishing for the Frontenac garrison. But now the French invited them to the fort for a feast, and they came to the number of thirty men and about ninety women and children. All were seized, and a raiding party from the fort secured nearly as many more. The warriors were tied to a row of posts inside of the fort, and one witness declared that they were fastened by the neck, hands and feet in such a way that they could neither sleep nor drive off the mosquitoes. To make matters worse, some of the Christian Indians from down the river amused themselves by burning the fingers of the unfortunates in the bowls of their pipes. Most of them were eventually sent to France to share with convicts and heretics the horrible slavery of the royal galleys. As for the women and children, many died at the fort, and the rest were baptized and distributed among the mission villages.

Gateway to Fort Frontenac

The following year the Iroquois and their allies the English, threatened reprisal, and an urgent entreaty was dispatched to the French king begging him to send back the prisoners who had gone to the galleys. The letter was written by the governor, and it contained these words: “If ill-treatment has caused them all to die—for they are people who easily fall into dejection, and who die of it—and if none of them come back, I do not know whether we can persuade these barbarians not to attack us.”

Thirteen of the captives were finally sent back from France gorgeously clad, and returned to their people. But before they arrived affairs in the valley of the St. Lawrence had become so critical that orders were sent to have the commandant of Fort Frontenac destroy and desert the stronghold. The garrison presently reached Montreal where they reported that they had set fire to everything in the fort that would burn, sunk three vessels belonging to it in the lake, mined the walls, and left matches burning in the powder magazine. After they had started on their journey they heard the explosion. But it was learned later that the destruction was far from complete, and a large quantity of stores and munitions fell into the hands of the Iroquois.

The fort remained a ruin for seven years, and then it was repaired and once more garrisoned. It did not suffer again in the hazards of war until 1758 when it capitulated to an English expedition from Oswego. The victors carried off as much plunder as they could, and burned the rest or gave it to their Indian allies. Besides battering the fort to pieces they destroyed the surrounding buildings and the shipping and left only desolation behind.

Such is the early story of Kingston, the most important town on the St. Lawrence above Montreal. The city of today is a place of some fifteen thousand inhabitants. Its military college, its massive forts and its martello towers make it “the West Point of Canada.” In the town itself is Fort Frontenac near the waterside, and on a height of a neighboring island that is connected with the city by a quaint wooden toll-bridge, is Fort Henry. Both forts are of gray, weather-stained stone which gives them an appearance of great age. One of the martello towers is right in the harbor. The typical tower of this type is a circular structure of masonry erected to repel the approach of an enemy by water, and has on the summit a gun mounted on a revolving platform so it can be fired in any direction. The Kingston towers were originally capable of doing very effective work in repelling marauding Yankees, and they still look grim and menacing and ready to deal out dire destruction, but in modern warfare they probably have little value.

As seen from the harbor Kingston presents a particularly attractive appearance with its spires and domes rising from amid the green foliage, and the steamships and slender-masted sailing vessels and numerous minor craft along its waterfront. The place is very compact, and it is astonishing on a pleasant evening to see how full the chief street is of people. Most of the stores are closed, but the younger portion of the inhabitants seems to be out, nevertheless. The saloons and tobacco shops are busy, and the moving picture “theatoriums” are generously patronized; yet in the main the populace is just strolling. I imagined that many of them might resort to the public library, but this institution is merely a large dismal room over a store where I found only a scant dozen readers. The books were caged off in an alcove, and the battered old reading tables and tattered magazines were far from being cheerfully attractive. An American town of the same size would have a fine building and an extensive collection of books.

Perhaps the feature of Kingston that I enjoyed most was a park deeply shadowed with trees, and open on one side to Lake Ontario. It was delightful to linger there by the shore on a sunny afternoon, cooled by the breeze, watching the limpid waves beat on the low rocky beach. The water was wonderfully clear, and it enters the St. Lawrence as pure as a mountain spring.

To the south were the first of the Thousand Islands. These islands, which, as a matter of fact, number 1692, extend from Lake Ontario to Prescott, fifty miles below. Some authorities say they begin with a group west of Kingston known as the Three Brothers, and end at Brockville with the Three Sisters. But there are other islands which dispute the claims of these. Some people disregard the Three Brothers entirely because they are several miles out in the lake, and declare that the rightful leader of the procession is Whiskey Island, overlooked by the grim stronghold of Fort Henry.

You could heave a stone from one end of Whiskey Island to the other; yet there are some isles in the archipelago so much smaller than this as to be mere dimples on the surface of the broad river and supporting not the least verdure on their barren rocks. Other islands are large, fertile areas crowned with lofty trees and containing hundreds of acres of well-cultivated farms. Occasionally a single farmer owns an entire island of a suitable size to support him and keep him busy. One such owner with whom I talked thought this quite an ideal arrangement. He had no line fences to maintain, and if he exterminated the weeds he knew they would not come in again by someone else's neglect. Boats furnish easy means of travel from the islands to the mainland in the warm months, and in winter the channels are thickly sheeted with ice, on which the islanders journey freely back and forth.

The steamers that make the down-river trips through the islands leave Kingston at a very early hour, and on the autumn day that I went over the route the morn was still dusky and starlit when I went on board. But soon after we started the sun came up in the red eastern haze, and sent its warm level beams over the broad expanse of the river. We continued among the islands for four or five hours, yet much of the time so large were they that it seemed as if we were sailing down a stream with mainland on either side. At other times we were amid clusters of the lesser islands, many of which are owned by wealthy people who have built fine residences on them and laid out tasteful grounds. These summer homes represent all kinds of domiciles from the modest cottage of the camper to the imposing castle of the millionaire. Occasionally a little bridge connected islets, and the waterside was buttressed with a stout stone wall that followed in a sinuous line the natural contour of the shore. The turf and the trees too, were groomed into a park-like aspect, and it was all very pretty and pleasant. But I preferred those islands that were still in a wild state of nature, with bristling firs and pines crowning their rugged rocks. As a whole they are mild and low-lying and make no very striking appeal to the sense of sight, though admirers declare them to be the most picturesque archipelago in the world. Their chief attraction consists in the constant changes of scene, daintiness of form, and the turning and intersecting of the transparent waterways gliding placidly between. That they should be healthful and have charm for a summer resort with that cool flow of crystalline water always about them is no wonder.

The river in this vicinity is remarkably equable, never in flood and never much affected by droughts. Seven feet is its greatest variation between a time of unusual rainfall, and a season that is extremely dry. But the level of the stream is also influenced by strong prevailing winds blowing up or down the lake; and as a result there have been instances of rapid fall, followed by a returning wave of extraordinary height.

What the Indians thought of the islands can be judged from the fact that they called them “The Garden of the Great Spirit.” The primeval forest of the region abounded with deer and other game, the waters teemed with fish, and its little bays and islets were the haunts of numerous waterfowl—could anything be more delectable to the red hunter than such a land of plenty?

Another poetic fancy with regard to the islands refers us back to the time when Adam and Eve were driven from the Garden of Eden. We are told that Eden itself was borne away by the white-winged angels to the eternal spheres on high; but in passing through space there fluttered down to earth some flowers from the divine garden. Most of them fell into the broad outlet of Lake Ontario and there became the Thousand Islands—the paradise of the St. Lawrence.

The first of the Thousand Islands near Kingston

For unnumbered years this immediate neighborhood was the border-range of two of the most powerful Indian clans that inhabited the ancient American wilderness. North and east roamed the haughty Algonquins, noted as the greatest hunters of the land, while in the valleys to the south dwelt the Iroquois, who lived by fishing and cultivating the soil and who boasted of great fields of maize and extensive apple orchards. For many a changing season these people of the wilds dwelt side by side in harmony. It was one of the friendly customs of the young men of the two tribes to meet at certain times to hunt and fish together, with the understanding that whichever party killed the lesser amount of game animals, or speared the fewer fish, should dress all the spoils of the chase that were brought in. Usually the Iroquois were the unfortunate ones, and it at length became regarded as a certainty that they would do the “squaw” work and that their rivals would enjoy running the game to earth with no aftermath of disagreeable labor. This disinclined the Iroquois to the sport and it was gradually being abandoned when, on one of the now rare occasions that the rivals engaged in a hunt, the Algonquins were astonishingly unsuccessful. For three days they followed their quest in vain, but the Iroquois came from their forest rovings with game in abundance. The Algonquins went sullenly about the unwelcome task of dressing the game, and so sorely did they feel their disgrace that they vowed among themselves to have revenge. Night came and while the weary Iroquois hunters slept, a sudden assault was made and every one of them slain.

The assassins denied their deed, and not till long after did the friends of the dead learn the facts. Then they asked that justice should be done the slayers. The Algonquins were called to a council but they evaded the matter of a settlement, and tried to satisfy the complainants with honeyed words. This, however, availed nothing. The Iroquois, fiercely indignant, swore they would not rest, they nor their children to the last generation, until the Algonquins had been swept from the earth. Thus began the terrible feud which existed between the two savage races at the coming of the white men, and which continued to rage, drawing into its toils the French and the English and resulting in long dark years of border warfare.

A favorite rendezvous of the Indians was Carleton Island, one of the first good-sized islands on the American side of the river. Here many a council of war was held and many a bloody raid was devised. This same island, during the War of the Revolution, was a famous place of refuge for the tories of the Middle Colonies.

Perhaps the most interesting story of the Thousand Islands is that of the Lost Channel. It dates back to the time of the French and Indian War. An English naval and military expedition had started from Oswego against Montreal. The naval portion consisted of two armed vessels, the Mohawk and the Onondaga, and a number of boats. Soon after this flotilla had entered the St. Lawrence the lookout on the Onondaga discovered a party of French soldiers in a bateau putting out from Carleton Island. The vessel promptly started in pursuit, at the same time signalling the Mohawk to follow. A lively race of several miles ensued, and then the French boat disappeared down a narrow waterway between a large island and a group of smaller islands.

The Onondaga continued to follow until a startling discharge of musketry from the wooded banks of the islands roundabout showed that it had sailed into a trap. The decks of the warship were swept by the leaden hail of the concealed foe, yet the English returned this fire so fast and furiously that the enemy was glad to retire. It was now necessary to find the way back to the main channel and to send word to the sister ship, which had not been seen for some time, to return also. For this latter duty a boat was dispatched under the command of Coxswain Terry, who delivered the order successfully. Then he and his crew left the Mohawk and started to row to their own vessel.

The Onondaga got back to the main channel and was at length rejoined by the Mohawk, but the coxswain's boat failed to appear. After an anxious period of waiting several parties were sent out to find the missing men. Their search, however, was unavailing, and when hope had to be abandoned the expedition went on its way. Nothing was ever learned of the fate of Terry and his crew. Probably they became bewildered among the maze of waterways and at last fell into the hands of the enemy. All we actually know is that the passage his boat entered after leaving the Mohawk has since been known as “The Lost Channel.”

Another narrative that adds much to the charm of the Thousand Islands is concerned with the early years of the second quarter of the nineteenth century. The belief was at that time widely accepted both in Canada and the United States that the former country was being inflicted with the same abuses by the English government that had caused the thirteen American colonies to fight for their independence. A body of Canadian rebels established headquarters on Navy Island in the Niagara River, a short distance above the falls, and from there pretended to rule Canada. A little sidewheel steamer, the Caroline, went back and forth between the island and Buffalo carrying provisions to the rebels. But one dark winter night a company of the “Men of Gore” as the government troops guarding the Canadian shore called themselves, rowed across the swift and dangerous current, seized the Caroline as she lay at her wharf, put the crew ashore, set the steamer on fire and sent her all ablaze over Niagara Falls. As a consequence, the Navy Island rebels were starved out.

The historic lighthouse at Prescott

This act roused the ire of an American who was familiarly called “Bill” Johnson, and who now became a sort of political Robin Hood intent to confer on Canada the boon of freedom. He got together a band of outlaws, or patriots, if one accepts their view, and on the night of May 30, 1838, he and his followers, disguised as Indians and armed with muskets, boarded the Canadian steamer, Sir Robert Peel, while en route from Brockville to Toronto carrying twenty passengers and a large amount of money to pay off the troops in the Upper Province. With shouts of “Remember the Caroline!” the “patriot” band forced the passengers and crew to take to the boats. Then the steamer was set on fire and left to her fate. The hull is still to be seen where it sank about a mile down the river from Thousand Island Park.

Johnson, elated with his success, made a personal declaration of war; but fortune favored him with no further conquests, and this “Pirate of the Thousand Islands” soon became a fugitive from justice. His daring and devoted daughter Kate rowed him from hiding-place to hiding-place, and kept him supplied with food. Kate at length succeeded in securing his pardon, and he became a lighthouse keeper. She herself married happily and was much loved and respected for her devotion to her father in the gloomy days of his outlawry. A secluded isle known as “The Devil's Oven” on which he was concealed for over a year belongs to one of her descendants.

In a literary way the Thousand Islands are closely linked with what is considered by many to be Cooper's finest story—“The Pathfinder.” The culminating scenes of the book are located on “Station Island.” No island of that name is to be found on the maps, and the author probably did not have any particular island in mind, but there seems reasonable warrant for concluding it must have been one of those on the Canadian side above Ganonoque.

As we move on down the river we at length reach Brockville. Near the east end of the town a bluff rises from the water's edge to a height of about fifty feet. This ledge with its overhanging shelves and clinging vines and many little caves is commonly spoken of as “High Rocks.” At a point where the face of the cliff is comparatively smooth tracings of a painting could be seen until within a few years. Formerly the spot was visited every spring by a band of Indians, who with weird ceremonies and incantations brightened the picture with fresh paint and departed. The picture was a rough representation of two white men apparently falling out of a canoe propelled by several Indians. This commemorated the following episode:

Two captured English officers were being conveyed by the Indians down the river to Montreal. As they approached Brockville a terrific storm arose and the boat being heavily loaded the Indians threw the prisoners overboard to lighten the canoe and at the same time appease the storm-god by a human sacrifice. But the storm-god refused to be placated. The gale increased in violence, and the Indians, feeling that they were doomed, mingled the wail of their death song with the howling of the hurricane. When opposite High Rocks the canoe went down with all its human freight, which included a distinguished chief. For more than a hundred years afterward members of the tribe visited the rock to renew the picture, and to attempt by their incantations to win back the favor of the Great Spirit, who was angry because the two officers had been drowned instead of being saved to burn at the stake.

As a whole, Brockville's experience has been peaceful, but one winter day, in the War of 1812, the Americans crossed the St. Lawrence on the ice and raided the town, robbing houses and carrying off as prisoners many of the villagers. In retaliation the Canadians attacked the fortified American town of Ogdensburg a little farther down the river. They surprised the garrison, took seventy-five prisoners and burned the barracks and four war vessels.

But now our steamer passes the row of little low-lying islets known as the Three Sisters that breast the current just below Brockville, and the Thousand Islands lie behind us, while the rapids are not far ahead.

The Long Sault Rapids