II. THE NIAGARA PORTAGE AND ITS FIRST ATTEMPTED SETTLEMENT UNDER The summer of 1761 was by no means a happy one for Sir William Johnson, Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Crown "in the Northern Parts of North America." The western Indians were restless under the recent British occupancy of the posts, and felt that they were treated with parsimony and neglect in marked contrast to the bountiful paternalism of French rule; they were exasperated by the continual intrusion of white settlers upon their lands, and French emissaries were active in stirring up their resentment. This feeling of discontent was shared by his own especial wards, the Six Nations of the Iroquois, and the Senecas, who were the hereditary keepers of the Western Door of the Long House, were at the point of open rebellion. On the 17th of June Captain Donald Campbell, in command at Detroit, sent a messenger to Major William Walters at Fort Niagara with the alarming intelligence that the Senecas had sent war belts to the western tribes, urging them to take up the hatchet in furtherance of a general plot to surprise all the posts, including Niagara and Fort Pitt. It was time for prompt action, and General Amherst ordered a detach L ment of 300 men under command of Major Henry Gladwin sent to the relief of the Northern posts and at the same time requested Sir William Johnson to visit Niagara and Detroit to conciliate the Senecas and the western tribes, as well as to regulate the fur trade and correct its abuses. The Superintendent was wise and tactful in his dealings with the Indians, and his influence was potent with the Six Nations. On the 24th of July Sir William reached Fort Niagara, which he had besieged and captured from the French in 1759. Here he promptly began the arduous duties of his special mission, holding councils with and listening to the complaints of the neighboring tribes. Soon, however, he encountered what seems to have been a disagreeable surprise, mentioned in his diary under date of Sunday, July 26th: "At seven in the morning I set off with Colonel Eyre, Lieutenant Johnson,* my son, and DeCouagne,‡ for the island, whereon the vessel is building for exploring the Lakes Huron and Michigan, which island is about two miles from Little Niagara, on the place where Shabear Jean Coeur lived. There is a house built within quarter of a mile of said place by one Stirling for the use of the Company, viz: Rutherford, Duncan etc., who intend to monopolize the whole carrying place by virtue of a permit from General Amherst." Three days later (July 29, 1761,) he wrote from Niagara to General Amherst, reporting a meeting with several chiefs of the "Chipewaigh" nation "and some Mississageys," and added: "I see plainly that there appears to be an universal jealousy amongst every nation, on account of the hasty steps they look upon we are taking towards getting possession of this country, which measures, I am certain, will never subside whilst we encroach within the limits which, you may recollect, have been put under the protection of the King in the year 1726, and confirmed to them by him and his successors ever since, and by orders sent to the governors not to allow any of his subjects settling thereon; which they were ac *Lieutenant Guy Johnson of the "Independents," his nephew, who was his private secretary. John Johnson, afterward Sir John Johnson, his successor in office. § Navy Island. quainted with, by his late majesty, in your speech of the twenty-second of April, 1760, delivered by Brigadier General Monckton. You then promised to prevent any person whatsoever, from settling or even hunting therein; but that it should remain their absolute property. I thought it necessary to remind your Excellency thereof, as the other day on my riding to the place where the vessels were building, I found some carpenters at work finishing a large house for one Mr. Stirling near the falls and have since heard others are shortly to be built thereabouts. As this must greatly add to the Indians' discontent, being on the carrying place, and within the very limits, which, by their agreement, they are not so much as allowed to dispose of, I should be glad to know whether I can acquaint them that those people will be ordered to remove or not, and I hope from your Excellency's answer to be able to satisfy them on that head."* Sir Jeffrey Amherst's reply was sent from Albany, 9th August, 1761, in which he wrote: "The Indians need be under no apprehension of Losing their Lands, it never was my Design to take an Inch from them, unless when the necessity of the service obliges me to it, and that they have been warned of, so that they need not take any umbrage at the Settlements on the Carrying place; where People Horses, Carriages etc. are absolutely necessary to keep up the Communication with the upper posts; and those that are now there for that purpose have no grant of those Lands, but are only upon sufferance till His Majesty's pleasure is known, and until that is known they must not be removed."+ This decision was by no means to Sir William's liking and when he revisited Little Niagara upon his return from Detroit his chagrin appears in the following entry in his diary: "Niagara, Thursday October 6 [1761]. The Major [Walters], DeCouagne etc. complain of Stirling monopolizing the trade by keeping a great store of goods at Little Niagara, which will prevent any Indians coming to the fort, or *Unpublished MSS. of Sir Wm. Johnson in N. Y. State Library Vol. V., P. III. #Unpublished MSS. of Sir Wm. Johnson in N. Y. State Library Vol. V., P. 112. under the eye of the garrison, so that they [i. e. Stirling and others] may cheat the Indians as much as they please in spite of all regulations." It is evident that Sir William Johnson was greatly annoyed and so was led to speak unjustly of one of the best respected and most noteworthy characters in the history of the early British fur trade. When the Marquis de Vaudreuil surrendered Canada on the 8th of September, 1760, the British lost no time in taking possession of such of his western posts as had not already come into their hands. On the 12th of September Major Robert Rogers with 200 of his famous Rangers was dispatched from Montreal westward by way of Niagara and Presqu' Isle, where he was reinforced by Captain Donald Campbell with 100 regulars sent from Fort Pitt, and on the 29th of November the troops quietly took possession of Detroit. This opened the way of approach to the northern fur trade which had been so long coveted by the British and although the season was then too far advanced to send up goods from Albany, so that there was a great shortage of provisions and other supplies for the Indians during the winter, the spring of 1761 saw many traders on their way to the Northwest. One of the most enterprising and successful of the eastern merchants was John Duncan, a Scotchman who had been a lieutenant in the 44th Regiment of Foot, but had retired from the service about 1758 and had established a large and successful business at Schenectady.* He was quick to take advantage of the opening up of western trade and early in 1761 became associated with Captain Walter Rutherfordt of New York and his brother-in-law, the well known Peter Van *He was first commissioned as an Ensign in the 44th, June 2, 1755, and as Lieutenant, April 25, 1757. Walter Rutherford was a son of Sir John Rutherford of Edgerston in Scotland, and served in the British army from the age of seventeen until the close of the French War. His commission as a Captain in the 60th Regiment of Foot (Royal Americans) was dated 30th December, 1755. He married a daughter of James Alexander, whose son was the famous American General, William Alexander, better known as Lord Sterling. Brugh Livingston,* in a mercantile enterprise which apparently contemplated not only establishing a trading post near the upper end of the Niagara portage, but also the building up of a permanent settlement at that desirable location, transporting families with their cattle, etc., to be established there. To this end they applied to General Amherst for a grant of land "on the carrying place" and were given provisionally 10,000 acres for their purposes. Their representative was James Sterling, who had been a commissary of provisions under General Haldimand in the French war; and as has been seen, with his accustomed energy, he was early on the ground. His storehouse was near completion by the close of July, 1761, and well filled with goods soon thereafter, much to the vexation of the neighboring Indians who resented this encroachment, and of their loyal protector, Sir William Johnson, who found himself unable to dislodge this well-favored and licensed intruder. Albert H. Porter in his interesting "Historical Sketch of Niagara from 1678 to 1876," says: "The large house referred to was undoubtedly that afterwards occupied by John and Philip Steadman. The current tradition is, that the same building was first erected at Fort Niagara and used by the French as a chapel and was afterwards taken down and rebuilt at the place named. This is rendered quite probable from the fact that a chapel was standing in the fort in 1757, which disappeared and was never otherwise accounted for, and also that on the building occupied by Steadman—presumed to be the same-there was a steeple or belfry, an ap *Peter Van Brugh Livingston, born at Livingston Manor near Albany in. 1710, was a brother of Philip Livingston who signed the Declaration of Independence, and also of William Livingston, the celebrated Governor of New Jersey during the Revolution, whom the British called the "Don Quixote of the Jerseys". He lived in New York City on the east side of Hanover Square, his garden extending down to the East River. He was engaged in the shipping business with William Alexander, afterward known as Lord Sterling, the American General whose sister Mary he had married in 1739. At the outbreak of the Revolution he opposed British aggression, was a member of the N. Y. Committee of One Hundred in 1775, and in the same year became President of the first New York Provincial Congress. He was Treasurer of New York 1776-1778, and throughout the struggle for independence was an ardent and faithful patriot. |
