Historic Highways of America/Volume 7/Part 1/Chapter 2

by Archer Butler Hulbert

Layout 2

CHAPTER II

THE EVOLUTION OF PORTAGES

FROM every point of view the portages of America, considered historically, were most important, because by reason of their strategic position they were coigns of vantage for military operations.

Picture the continent at the opening of the culminating phases of the Old French War in 1740–1760. For nearly two centuries military and civil officials, missionaries and traders had been passing to and fro on the Ottawa, St. Lawrence, and Richelieu, through Canada, Illinois, and Louisiana, erecting forts and establishing chapels and trading stations. Little by little the English settlements had crept back into the interior. Ten score of portage paths had been traversed; forts and blockhouses had been built, captured, burned, and rebuilt. Flying parties of French had swooped down into New York, and English and Dutch had chased them back. Both sides had become more and more acquainted with the geography of the continent, and now, when war was about to begin in earnest, both antagonists leaped forward quickly to seize for once and all the vital spots in the "communications" in the neutral ground between them, where the vanguards had been bickering and fighting for at least a century.

The Richelieu River, Lake Champlain, and the Hudson had offered the founders of Quebec and Montreal the most direct course to the New England settlements. They had learned it well in their campaigns against the Iroquois. The keys of this route were the portage paths between the St. Lawrence and the Richelieu in the north; and the portages between Lakes Champlain and George, and Lake George and the Hudson River in the south. As early as 1664 Jacques de Chambly erected a fort at the foot of the rapids, at Chambly on the Richelieu, at the end of the thirteen-mile portage from La Prarie three miles above Montreal on the St. Lawrence. Two other forts, Fort St. Louis and Fort Sainte Terese, also guarded the Richelieu River; and at its head, at the foot of Lake Champlain, stood Fort Richelieu.

Later a portage path fifteen miles in length was built from La Prarie (Laprairie) to Fort John (St. Johns), below the "Island of St. Therese." Ascending Lake Champlain the French quickly perceived the strategic positions of Crown Point and "Carillon"—at the end of the portage from Lake George—where they erected Fort Crown Point in 1727, and Fort Frederick (Ticonderoga) in 1731.

The English on the other hand ascended the Hudson from Albany, and built Fort Ingoldesby at Stillwater in 1709, and Fort Nicholson at Fort Edward in the same year. At the Wood Creek end of the portage another fort was built first named Fort Schuyler, later named Fort Anne. Fort Edward and Fort William Henry were built in 1755.

This chain of forts from Albany to Montreal, guarding the important passageways on land and water, marks the line of what was known as "the Grand Pass from New York to Montreal." The last struggle for this line of communication, Johnson's rebuke to the advancing Dieskau, Abercrombie's stroke at Fort Ticonderoga, the brilliant Montcalm's capture of Fort William Henry, and, finally, the wresting of the Champlain Valley from the French by the hitherto defeated English, forms a unique romance which finds its key of action at the portage paths which united the Hudson, Lake George, and Lake Champlain.

There were other routes into New England, known of old, on which the French had spread terror throughout the North Atlantic slope. They came up the Chaudière and down the Kennebec into Massachusetts' "Province of Main." Early in the French and Indian wars Massachusetts began another series of campaigns, to secure again and once for all the Kennebec Valley, building Forts Halifax (1754) and Western (1752) at the head of navigation. At the northern end of the portage between the Kennebec and "Rivière Puante," on the Morris map of 1749, here presented, we find the Indian village Wanaucok still described as a nest of "Indians in the French interest." These allies of the

The Morris Map of 1749

The Morris Map of 1749

[Showing important portages between the St. Lawrence and New England rivers]

(From the original in the British Museum)

French around the highland portages explain the need of English forts on the Kennebec. The forts of the Connecticut River were largely necessitated by the routes of travel between the heads of its tributaries and the "Rivière S^t. Francis" and "Otter River." On the Morris map we read "Indians of S^t. Francis in league with the French." The mouth of Otter Creek was near Fort Ticonderoga, and it offered, with a portage to the Connecticut, another route of French aggression. "From this Fort the French make their excursions," reads the interesting Morris map, "and have this war [1745 seq.] burnt and destroy'd two Forts (Saratoga and Fort Massachusets) and broke up upwards of 30 Settlements."

The Hudson–Lake George portage marked the most important course from Canada to New York, but there was another route which was fought for earnestly. The French could ascend the St. Lawrence to Lake Ontario and gain access to the entire rear of New York, and by a dozen minor waterways the Hudson again could be reached. The St. Lawrence had long been an avenue of French exploration and missionary activity. "The route thither (from Quebec up the St. Lawrence to Lake Ontario and Lake Simcoe to Georgian Bay to the land of the Hurons) is very easy, there being only two waterfalls where it is necessary to land and make a portage—a short one at that; and there it would be easy to construct a small redoubt for the purpose of maintaining free communication and of making ourselves masters of this great lake."^[1] Thus the Jesuits "had anticipated by twenty years Frontenac's plan of building a fort for the control of Lake Ontario."^[2] Fort Frontenac (Kingston, Canada, 1673) guarded the French end of Lake Ontario, while the English ascended the Mohawk and descended the "Onnondaga" (Oswego) to its mouth (Oswego, New York) where they erected Fort Oswego in 1722, which Montcalm captured in 1757.

To reach the mouth of the Onondaga, the English crossed the already well-worn path, the "Oneida Portage," a mile in length, between the Mohawk River and Wood Creek. The strategic position of this path is not shown more clearly than by the number and importance of the military works erected there, Forts Williams (1732), Bull (1737), Newport and famed Stanwix (1758). Throughout the old French War this strip of ground was the scene of bloody battles, massacres, and sieges; and its detailed story—a fascinating one—should be written immediately. The Mohawk end of the portage path forms the main avenue of Rome, New York, and at the center of the little city the site of Fort Stanwix, "a fort which never surrendered," is appropriately marked. It is the boast of the Romans that from this site the stars and stripes were "first unfurled in battle," August 3, 1777. The flag was made from an officer's blue camlet cloak and the red petticoat of a soldier's wife. The white stars and stripes were cut from ammunition bags. The news that Congress, on June 14, had adopted the flag had just reached the inland portage fortress by a batteau from down the Mohawk.

The granting of the vast area of land on the Ohio River by the King of England to the Ohio Land Company in 1749 brought home to the French the realization that the West was disputed territory, and Governor Galissonière immediately dispatched Céloron de Bienville with a band of two hundred and seventy men to reënforce the French claim to the Ohio Valley. It is an ancient French custom to bury leaden plates at the mouths of rivers as a sign of possession, and Céloron bore a supply of such memorials to bury at the mouths of rivers emptying into the Ohio. Ascending the St. Lawrence the party crossed Lake Ontario to the Niagara River. This strategic portage path around Niagara Falls, which joined Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, used from time immemorial, became important to the French when they secured the mastery of Lake Ontario after the erection of Fort Frontenac. Four years after the English came to Oswego the French erected the first permanent Fort Niagara here in 1726, absolutely controlling all intercourse with the West by way of the Great Lakes. It was the key of the lake system, and the numerous campaigns of the English projected against Fort Niagara until its capture in 1759 are evidence of its strategic position and the importance of the little worn road it guarded.

Once beyond the Niagara portage Céloron's attention was turned to the rival routes from Lake Erie to La Belle Rivière. There were at least five passageways well-known to the Indians. Of these the French knew very little, for, having found the Mississippi, they had been less interested in this branch of it. But now that the English were claiming and even settling the land along its half-known shores it was time they were enforcing their claims. So Céloron made for the first portage southward in order to strike the Ohio on its headwaters. This was the Chautauqua Lake portage from Chautauqua Creek—which the French knew as "Rivière aux Pommes"—six miles by land from the present Barcelona, New York, to Lake Chautauqua. From the seventeenth to the twenty-second of July was spent in making the difficult march over what has long been known as the "Old Portage Road." Bonnécamps, who accompanied Céloron, wrote: "The road is passably good. The wood through which it is cut resembles our forests in France."^[3]

Céloron went his way, having given great prominence to the Chautauqua portage, indirectly suggesting that it was the most convenient pass from Lake Erie into the disputed Ohio Valley. It remained for another to mark a more practicable course.

Céloron's report to his governor was thoroughly alarming, and a French force under M. Marin was sent from Montreal in 1752 to fortify the route to the Ohio River and to erect forts to hold that river itself.

After looking over the formidable Chautauqua route, Marin moved along the shore of Lake Erie to "Presque Isle" (Erie, Pennsylvania), where the French had made a settlement as early as 1735. Marin chose to make this twenty-mile portage from Presque Isle to "Rivière aux Bœufs" the armed route of French aggression into the Ohio Valley, in preference to the shorter but more tedious and more uncertain Chautauqua pass. At the northern end of the portage he built Fort Presque Isle and at its southern extremity Fort Le Bœuf.^[4] The arrival of the French upon the headwaters of the Allegheny will forever be remembered by the new and significant name Washington now gave Rivière aux Bœufs—which the stream still bears—French Creek. Marin, who hurried on down the Allegheny building Forts Machault (Venango) at the junction of Rivière aux Bœufs and the Allegheny, and Duquesne at the junction of Allegheny and Monongahela, should have named the Youghiogheny "English Creek." When once on the way, the time taken by the French and English to reach the key position of the West—Pittsburg—varied inversely as the length of the portages they had to traverse. It will be remembered that Washington in his first campaign of 1754 explored carefully the Youghiogheny River in the hope that the road he had just opened from the Potomac at Cumberland, Maryland to the "Great Crossings" (Smithfield, Pennsylvania) might after all be a portage path between Atlantic waters and the Mississippi system. He found the Youghiogheny useless.^[5] The English route to the Ohio was practically an all-land route; Braddock received a little help from the Potomac but did not even attempt to use any western river, nor did Forbes in 1758 or Bouquet in 1763. The Monongahela, downward from Redstone Old Fort (Brownsville, Pennsylvania), at the end of Burd's road, began to be used in the Revolutionary period, and in pioneer days was a famous point of embarcation for western travelers.

On the other hand, the French portage at Presque Isle was the key to their position in the Ohio Valley, for over it came every ounce of ammunition and stores for Fort Duquesne. It was Braddock's purpose in 1755 to ascend the Allegheny after the capture of Fort Duquesne, raze the forts that guarded this portage path, and then meet Governor Shirley who was marching upon Niagara.^[6] With Fort Duquesne captured, Forts Le Bœuf and Presque Isle razed, and Fort Niagara besieged, the French would have had as little hope of holding the Ohio Valley as the Shenandoah. Nothing could show more plainly the signification of these fortified portages than the campaigns directed against them.

Further west, the Maumee Valley was of early importance to the French because of the two portages which gave them access to the Miami River on the south and the Wabash on the southwest. The use to explorers of the latter portage has been mentioned. Here, near the present site of Maumee City, the first settlement of whites in the limits of the state of Ohio was made about 1679. The city of Fort Wayne, Indiana, marks the Maumee terminus of the important portage to the Wabash River—the modern name carrying the significance of fortification which we are emphasizing. It is to be deplored that the name Fort Stanwix, rather than Rome, is not retained for the city at the Mohawk terminus of the Oneida Portage in New York. Here the French built forts in 1686 and 1749, the latter being surrendered in 1760. Here General Anthony Wayne built a fortress in 1794 which controlled all traffic over the old pathway as had its predecessors.

Passing further west, two forts, at least, guarded well-known portages: Fort St. Joseph's (1712), located a little below South Bend, Indiana, guarding the Kankakee–St. Joseph portage; and Fort Winnebago (1829) guarding the Fox–Wisconsin portage. The post Ouiatanon founded on the Wabash in 1720 was the first military establishment within what is now the state of Indiana. It was located eighteen miles (by the river) below the mouth of the Tippecanoe and near the city of Lafayette. Many writers have located this historic site incorrectly—a mistake it is impossible to make when the actual meaning of the post is understood. It guarded the key of the upper Wabash, for this point "was the head of navigation for pirogues and large canoes, and consequently there was a transfer at this place of all merchandize that passed over the Wabash."^[7]

Coming down to the Revolutionary period, the battles fought upon these portages and the forts that were built show that these historic paths had lost little of their significance. All the way across the continent from the portage from the Kennebec to Quebec, over which Arnold led his army, to Fallen Timbers on the Maumee, near which Wayne built Fort Wayne, a significant portion of the struggle for a free America took place on portage paths. As in the French War, so in this later struggle, the paths between Lake Champlain and the Hudson and between the Mohawk and Lake Oneida were all-important passageways. Burgoyne was defeated not far from the spot where the French Dieskau was repulsed, and on the Oneida carrying-place, as has been said, the first United States flag was unfurled in battle in 1777. In the West, of course, Niagara never lost its importance, but the remainder of the portages had now lost something of their military significance, as the Revolution in the West was a series of raids and counter-raids on the settlements of the whites in Virginia and Kentucky, and upon the Indians in the valleys of the Muskingum, Scioto, Sandusky, Maumee, and Wabash. Cross-country land routes were well-worn at this date and few military movements were made which involved portages; such were Hamilton's capture of Vincennes by way of the Maumee and the Wabash, and Burd's keel-boat invasion up the Licking River into Kentucky. Savage strokes like those of Robertson and Sevier, Clark at Vincennes, McIntosh, Lewis, Brodhead, Bowman, Crawford, Harmar, St. Clair, and Wayne were distinctively land campaigns.

Yet in these, too, the value of the portage routes is most clearly seen, as for instance during the conquest of the northwestern Indians by General Anthony Wayne in 1793–94. The permanent headquarters of Wayne were at Fort Washington (Cincinnati), and temporary headquarters were at Fort Greenville (Greenville, O.) and Fort Defiance (Defiance, O.) The conquest was directed northward up the Great Miami Valley to the heads of the Wabash and Maumee. It was directed against the Indian villages, as was true of Harmar's and St. Clair's campaigns before it; and these villages, like so many others, were located in part at the portages between the Miami, Auglaize, St. Mary, and Wabash. At these places Wayne struck swiftly—building Forts Greenville, Recovery, Adams, and a fort on the headwaters of the Auglaize, the name of which is not known. From these points he made his heroic campaign of 1794 in the valleys of the Maumee, Auglaize and St. Mary. But with the successful prosecution of this campaign General Wayne's work was not done. The country conquered must be held—the crops destroyed must not be resown—the villages destroyed must not be rebuilt. All this was as important a feat as the victory at Fallen Timber, and much more difficult.

And so, in the months succeeding his victory, Wayne did as valuable work for his country as at any time, and one of the most important of his plans was a movement which looked toward holding the northern portages from the Miami River to the St. Mary and Auglaize. In a letter to the Secretary of War, dated October 17, 1794, at the Miami villages, Wayne observes: "The posts in contemplation at Chillicothe, or Picque town, on the Miami of the Ohio, at Lormie's stores, on the north branch, and at the old Tawa town, will reduce the land carriage of dead or heavy articles, at proper seasons, viz: late in the fall, and early in the spring, to thirty-five miles, and in times of freshets, to twenty in place of 175, by the most direct road to Grand Glaize, and 150 to the Miami villages, from fort Washington, on the present route, which will eventually be abandoned, as the one now mentioned will be found the most economical, and surest mode of transport, in time of war, and decidedly so in time of peace."^[8]

From Greenville on the twelfth of November he wrote again:

"As soon as circumstances will admit, the posts contemplated at Picque town, Lormie's stores, and at the old Tawa towns, at the head of navigation, on Au Glaize river, will be established for the reception, and as the deposites, for stores and supplies, by water carriage, which is now determined to be perfectly practicable, in proper season; I am, therefore, decidedly of opinion, that this route ought to be totally abandoned, and that adopted, as the most economical, sure, and certain mode of supplying those important posts, at Grand Glaize and the Miami villages, and to facilitate an effective operation towards the Detroit and Sandusky, should that measure eventually be found necessary; add to this, that it would afford a much better chain for the general protection of the frontiers, which, with a block house at the landing place, on the Wabash, eight miles southwest of the post at the Miami villages, [southern end of the Maumee–Wabash portage path on Little River] would give us possession of all the portages between the heads of the navigable waters of the Gulfs of Mexico and St. Lawrence, and serve as a barrier between the different tribes of Indians. . ."^[9] In the treaty of Greenville, signed by the confederated nations and the United States authorities, the reserved tracts indicate the line of policy previously suggested by General Wayne, and the following section emphasizes the strategic meaning of the portages of the interior of the West: "And the said Indian tribes will allow to the people of the United States, a free passage by land and by water, as one and the other shall be found convenient, through their country, along the chain of posts hereinbefore mentioned; that is to say, from the commencement of the portage aforesaid, at or near Loramie's store, thence, along said portage to the St. Mary's, and down the same to fort Wayne, and then down the Miami to lake Erie; again, from the commencement of the portage at or near Loramie's store, along the portage; from thence to the river Auglaize, and down the same to its junction with the Miami at fort Defiance; again, from the commencement of the portage aforesaid, to Sandusky river and down the same to Sandusky bay and lake Erie, and from Sandusky to the post which shall be taken at or near the foot of the rapids of the Miami of the lake; and from thence to Detroit. Again, from the mouth of Chicago, to the commencement of the portage between that river and the Illinois, and down the Illinois river to the Mississippi; also, from fort Wayne, along the portage foresaid, which leads to the Wabash and then down the Wabash to the Ohio."^[10]

As a site for forts the old portage paths came to take an important place in the social order of things. In many parts settlements were safe only within the immediate vicinity of a fort. Often they were safe only within the palisade walls of upright logs;^[11] and around these interior fortresses the first lands were cleared and the first grain sowed. They were trading posts as well as forts—indeed many of the portage forts were originally only armed trading stations located at the portages because these were common routes of travel. Around them the Indians raised their huts when the semi-annual hunting seasons were over. Thus on the portage, settlements sprang up about the forts to which the military régime had no objection—though such settlements were discouraged equally by those devoted to the earliest fur trade and to missionary expansion.^[12] But military officers found their one hope of retaining the land lay in allying the Indians firmly with them. The attempts of the French so to shift the seats of the Indian tribes in the West that the English could not trade with them or deflect them from French interest forms an interesting chapter in the early rivalry for Indian support.^[13] This never appeared more acute than at Fort Duquesne in 1758 when Forbes's army was approaching and the brave missionary Post was among the Delawares urging them to leave the region about the fort and abandon the French.

These portage forts being, oftentimes, half-way places, were convenient points for conventions and treaties. The Treaty of Fort Stanwix (1768) was one of the most important in our national history; other conventions, such as at Fort Watauga (1775), Fort Miami (1791), Greenville (1795), and Portage des Sioux (1815), are instances of important conventions meeting at half-way fortresses on or near the portage passageways.

When the pioneer era of expansion dawned, these worn paths, in many cases, became filled with the eager throngs hastening westward to occupy the empire beyond the mountains. The roads the armies had cut during the era of military conquest became the main lines of the expansive movement and only the waterways which gave access to the Ohio River or the Great Lakes were of great importance. The two important roadways which served as portages were the Genesee Road from the Mohawk to Buffalo, and Braddock's Road from Alexandria, Virginia to Brownsville (Redstone Old Fort), Pennsylvania. The heavier freight of later days tended to lengthen the old portages, as each terminus had to be located at a depth of water which would float many hundred-weight. But, as in the old days of canoes, the stage of water still determined the length of portage. Freight sent over the Alleghenies for the lower Ohio River ports of Indiana and Kentucky was shipped at Brownsville if the Monongahela contained a good stage of water; if not, the wagons continued onward to Wheeling with their loads. Old residents at such points as Rome, New York; Watertown, Pennsylvania; Akron, Ohio; Fort Wayne, Indiana remember vividly the pioneer day of the portages when barrels of salt and flour, every known implement of iron, mill stones, jugs and barrels of liquor, household goods, seeds, and saddles composed the heterogeneous loads that were dragged or rolled or hauled or "packed" over the portages of the West. Strenuous individuals have been known to roll a whiskey barrel halfway across a twenty-mile portage.

With the settling of the country and a new century came a new age of road-building. Travel until now had been on north and south routes—on portage paths, which usually ran north and south between the heads of rivers which flowed north or south, on routes of the buffalo, which the herds had laid on north and south lines during their annual migrations, and on Indian trails which had been worn deep by the nations of the north and those of the south during their immemorial conflicts. The main east and west land routes, such as Forbes's and Braddock's, were now to be replaced by well-made thoroughfares. In the building of certain of these, the dominating influence of water transportation, and, consequently, the strategic routes between them, were considered of utmost importance. This is emphasized strikingly in the building of the Cumberland National Road across the Alleghenies by the United States Government (1806–1818). In the Act passed by Congress enabling the people of Ohio to form a state we read: "That one-twentieth of the net proceeds of the lands lying within said State sold by Congress shall be applied to the laying out and making public roads leading from the navigable waters emptying into the Atlantic, to the Ohio."^[14] The Commissioners appointed according to law by President Jefferson surveyed the territory through which the road should pass and met at Cumberland, Maryland for consultation. In their report of 1806 they said: "In this consultation the governing objects were:

1. Shortness of distance between navigable points on the eastern and western waters.

2. A point on the Monongahela best calculated to equalize the advantages of this portage in the country within reach of it.

3. A point on the Ohio river most capable of combining certainty of navigation with road accommodation; embracing, in this estimate, remote points westwardly, as well as present and probable population on the north and south.

4. Best mode of diffusing benefits with least distance of road."

In their choice of Cumberland as the eastern terminus for this national road the question of portage entered largely into consideration: ". . it was found that a high range of mountains, called Dan's, stretching across from Gwynn's to the Potomac, above this point, precluded the opportunity of extending a route from this point in a proper direction, and left no alternative but passing by Gwynn's; the distance from Cumberland to Gwynn's being upward of a mile less than from the upper point, which lies ten miles by water above Cumberland, the Commissioners were not permitted to hesitate in preferring a point which shortens the portage, as well as the Potomac navigation."

After outlining the route of the road, the Commissioners summed up matters as follows: ". . it will lay about twenty-four and a half miles in Maryland, seventy-five and a half in Pennsylvania, and twelve miles in Virginia; . . this route . . has a capacity at least equal to any other in extending advantages of a highway; and at the same time establishes the shortest portage between the points already navigated, and on the way accommodates other and nearer points to which navigation may be extended, and still shorten the portage. . . Under these circumstances the portage may be thus stated:

"From Cumberland to Monongahela, sixty-six and one-half miles. From Cumberland to a point in measure with Connelsville, on the Youghiogeny river, fifty-one and one-half miles. From Cumberland to a point in measure with the lower end of the falls of the Youghiogeny, which will lie two miles north of the public road, forty-three miles. From Cumberland to the intersection of the route with the Youghiogeny river, thirty-four miles. . . The point which this route locates, at the west foot of Laurel Hill, having cleared the whole of the Alleghany mountain, is so situated as to extend the advantages of an easy way through the great barrier, with more equal justice to the best parts of the country between Laurel Hill and the Ohio. Lines from this point to Pittsburg and Morgantown, diverging nearly at the same angle, open upon equal terms to all parts of the western country that can make use of this portage; and which may include the settlements from Pittsburg up Big Beaver, to the Connecticut reserve, on Lake Erie, as well as those on the southern borders of the Ohio and all the intermediate country."

Thus it is clear that our one great national turnpike was, in reality, a portage path. Upon this same general principle many of our first highways were built, in an era when inland water navigation, on canal and river, was considered the secret of commercial prosperity.

With the building of canals, the ancient portages again became prominent because of geographical position; in every state the portage paths marked the summit levels. In the cases of such important works as the Erie Canal and the Ohio Canal the portages between the Mohawk and Wood Creek in New York and between the Cuyahoga and Tuscarawas in Ohio were of vital importance. In many instances, at the points where the old portages mark the spots of least elevation, two canals are found converging from three or four valleys.

It is quite impossible for us to realize the importance attached to the portage routes in days when steam navigation and locomotion were not dreamed of. This is suggested by the clause of the famous Ordinance of 1787 in which they were again declared to be "common highways forever free." Washington's serious study of this subject is exceedingly interesting—not less so because many of his plans which seemed to many idle dreaming were completely realized not long after his death.^[15]

With the advent of the era of railway building, and as the number of the shining rails increase yearly at these geographical centers, the strategic nature of the portage routes has been and is still being strongly emphasized. Engineering art is now defying nature everywhere, and daring feats of bridge-building are daily accomplished; but the old routes and passes still remain the most practicable, and in the long run pay best. In spite of the fact that tunnels can go wherever money dictates, and bridges can be swung across the most baffling chasms, at the same time the fiercest struggles for rights of way (outside the cities) are being waged today for the portage paths first trod by the Indian.

1. Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, vol. xl, p. 219. The St. Lawrence proved less easily navigated when it became better known.
2. Id., note 10 (page 257).
3. Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, vol. lxix, p. 161.
4. Described in Historic Highways of America, vol. iii, pp. 74–78.
5. Sparks's Writings of Washington, vol. ii, p. 21.
6. Royal Orders to Braddock, Historic Highways of America, vol. iv, pp. 47, 48.
7. Dunn's Indiana, p. 50.
8. American State Papers, vol. iv, p. 525.
9. Id., pp. 526–527.
10. Id., p. 562.
11. Sylvester's Northern New York, p. 279.
12. Hinsdale's Old Northwest, p. 48; Benton's The Wabash Trade Route, p. 15.
13. Dunn's Indiana, p. 47.
14. United States Statutes at Large, vol. ii, p. 173.
15. Historic Highways of America, vol. iii, ch. vi.