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
