Fort Frontenac

“ Father Charlevoix, writing in 1720, says of Fort Frontenac, “that it is a square with four bastions built of stone, and the ground it occupies is a quarter of a league in compass; its situation has something very pleasant; the sides of the river present every way a landscape well varied, and it is the same at the entrance of Lake Ontario.”
Fort Frontenac now fully re-established on a stronger basis, continued for many years to be an important post, with respect to trading, and likewise offensive and defensive operations against the Indians, and also the English. ”

“ His capture of Fort Frontenac, in 1758, put into the possession of the English the fort, nine armed vessels, forty pieces of cannon, a vast quantity of provisions and stores, and one hundred and ten prisoners. In the summer of 1764 he was employed against the Indians on the borders of Ontario, and at Presque Isle he compelled the Delawares, Shawnees, and other tribes to agree to terms of peace. He was appointed major general in 1772, and died at New York, October 21st, 1774. ”

“ Both sides were endeavoring to secure the alliance of the tribes of the upper lakes. [708] These wavered, and Frontenac saw the peril and the remedy. His recourse was to attack the Iroquois in their villages at once, and conquer on the Mohawk the peace he needed at Michillimackinac. It was Frontenac’s last campaign. In July, 1696, he left Montreal with twenty-two hundred men. He went by way of Fort Frontenac, crossed Lake Ontario, landed at Oswego, and struggled up its stream, and at last set sails to his canoes on Lake Onondaga. ”

“ Fort Frontenac’s garrison was also sadly diminished, and the distress throughout the country, from famine and disease, was very great. To add to the Governor’s troubles, the fur-trade had languished. Bands of Iroquois menaced the unfortunate settlers. The fields were untilled; danger lurked in every bush, and destitution, gaunt and grim, abounded everywhere. Peace must be had at any price, if the colony would live, and Denonville resolved to make it. ”

“ Meanwhile La Salle set out from Fort Brokenheart in March, attended by a Mohegan hunter who loved him, and by four gallant Frenchmen. Their journey was a miracle of courage across the unexplored woods to Lake Erie, and on to Frontenac. There La Salle heard that the moment his back was turned his garrison had looted and burned Fort Brokenheart; but he caught these deserters as they attempted to pass Fort Frontenac, and left them there in irons.
Every man has power to make of his mind an empire or a desert. ”

“ We see a face sensitive, perhaps sensuous, subtle, passionate, daring, tenacious. Such a man could not bind himself to the task of patient colonization at Fort Frontenac, or even find satisfaction in the more varied and exciting life of a frontiersman and trader. ”

“ In the question of Fort Frontenac, as in every thing else, the opposition to the governor, always busy and vehement, found its chief representative in the intendant, who told the minister that the policy of Frontenac was all wrong; that the public good was not its object; that he disobeyed or evaded the orders of the king; and that he had suffered the Iroquois to delude him by false overtures of peace. The representations of the intendant and his faction had such effect, that Ponchartrain wrote to the governor that the plan of re-establishing Fort Frontenac "must absolutely be abandoned." ”

“ La Forêt, the officer in command at Fort Frontenac, appeared, bringing with him a famous Iroquois chief called Decanisora or Tegannisorens, attended by a number 78 of warriors. They came to invite Frontenac to meet the deputies of the five tribes at Oswego, within their own limits. Frontenac's reply was characteristic. "It is for the father to tell the children where to hold council, not for the children to tell the father. Fort Frontenac is the proper place, and you should thank me for going so far every summer to meet you." ”

“ And as they rounded its long promontory, leaving the distant city behind it, May once more tried to picture the solitude of the scene as La Salle first knew it, broken only by his own canoe and those of the ferocious Iroquois. Meantime Hugh, not less interested in the historical associations of the place, drew from her, by cross-questioning, an outline of some of the tragic events of which Fort Frontenac had been the scene. ”

“ Had Frontenac been a timid man, he would have sent a messenger after Crisafy, and ordered him back; but his service of many years in many lands had accustomed the veteran to taking responsibility; and, persuaded as he was that he knew better what the interest of the country required than the king and the minister put together, he allowed the expedition to proceed. Within a month it had returned to Montreal after having put the fort once more in a condition of defence at a cost of sixteen thousand francs. Forty-eight men were left behind as a garrison. ”

“ In particular he must be praised for ridding Canada of murdering savages, as a means towards which he established, in 1673, an outpost at Fort Frontenac. [245] His return to France, however, emboldened the Seneca Indians, the most numerous of the Five Nations, to make frequent raids until his restoration to office in 1689. Five years later Frontenac began his great work of suppression, which was marked by an act of ferocious brutality in 1695, which has deeply stained the old man's reputation. ”

“ This policy was based on the belief that the colonists ought to live close together for mutual defence against the Iroquois. But Frontenac resolved to build a fort at the outlet of Lake Ontario. His enemies stated that this arose out of his desire to make personal profit from the fur trade; but on public grounds also there were valid reasons for the fort. A thrust is often the best parry; and it could well be argued that the French had much to gain from a stronghold lying within striking distance of the Iroquois villages. ”

“ Again the fields about Fort Frontenac were covered with tents, camp-sheds, and wigwams. Regulars, militia, and Indians, there were about two thousand men; and, besides these, eight hundred regulars just arrived from France had been left at Montreal to protect the settlers. [6] Fortune thus far had smiled on the enterprise, and she now gave Denonville a fresh proof of her favor. On the very day of his arrival, a canoe came from Niagara with news that a large body of allies from the west had reached that place three days before, and were waiting his commands. ”

“ The advance upon Ticonderoga was not so successful, although a portion of the troops under gallant Israel Putnam, afterwards so famous in the Revolution, dispersed some of the French and captured a hundred and forty-eight prisoners. Following this, an attack was made upon Fort Frontenac, located where the city of Kingston, Canada, is now situated, and here the English laid the fort in ruins and captured nine vessels carrying guns and supplies. ”

“ Valrennes, an officer of birth and of tried ability, former commandant of Fort Frontenac, had been sent to Chambly with a force consisting of one hundred and sixty regulars and militia, together with thirty or forty Indians, his instructions being to defend that place if attacked; but, should the enemy take the road to Laprairie, then to post himself in their rear and cut them off from their canoes. ”

“ On July 10, 1684, La Barre left Quebec with a body of two hundred troops. In ascending the river they were reinforced by recruits from the Canadian militia and several hundred Indian allies. After much hardship in the rapids the little army reached Fort Frontenac. Here the sanitary conditions proved bad and many died from malarial fever. All thought of attack soon vanished, and La Barre altered his plans and decided to invite the Iroquois to a council. ”

“ But such paltry success could avail the French little, for Bradstreet's capture of Fort Frontenac had already decided the fate of Fort Duquêsne. The French commander, his supplies being cut off, was obliged to dismiss the greater number of his men; otherwise Forbes could hardly have penetrated to the Ohio in that year. The elements fought for the French. Heavy rain ruined Bouquet's new road; the horses being underfed and overworked kept breaking down fast ”

“ Possessed himself of iron nerve and unbending resolution, and sustained by visions of high accomplishment, he expected more from [162] average men than they were altogether capable of rendering. More than once some of his followers deserted him. One attempt was made at Fort Frontenac to poison him; and finally he met his death at the hand of an assassin, a member of his own party, in that far southern region which he had added to the domain of France.
Frontenac's personal relations with La Salle are not very clearly defined. He was certainly favourable to him at first. ”

“ When this had been accomplished, they retraced their steps to their fortified camp on the lake shore. Already the army was getting into bad shape; the Indians were deserting and the French were falling sick through eating too abundantly of green corn and fresh pork; the latter article of diet being furnished by herds of swine kept by the Senecas. Despatching the sick in bateaux to Fort Frontenac, Denonville conducted the rest of his troops to Niagara in order to carry out the long-cherished design, which, in his correspondence with Dongan, he had disavowed, of erecting a fort at that point. ”

“ The ambassadors paddled across the lake and presented themselves before the commandant of Fort Frontenac, who received them with distinction, and ordered Lieutenant Perelle to escort them to Montreal. Scarcely had the officer conducted his august charge five leagues on their way, when, to his amazement, he found himself in the midst of six hundred Iroquois warriors, who amused themselves for a time with his terror, and then accompanied him as far as Lake St. Francis, where he found another body of savages nearly equal in number. ”

“ Over these waters have Champlain, the French Recollets, the first discoverers, La Salle, Father Hennepin, Chevalier de Tonti, La Barre, Denonville, Conte de Frontenac and others, passed time after time. Over the waters here floated the English under Bradstreet, upon the 25th August, 1750, who, at the break of day were to besiege Fort Frontenac, and to capture it.
The close of the war in 1783, brought the disbanded soldiers and many a refugee. Along the shores passed the whole of the 392Mohawk Indians on their way to their lands. ”

“ In carrying out these instructions he soon found himself embroiled at Quebec, and the same discord made itself felt throughout the wilderness.
Frontenac favoured the establishment of trading-posts and government forts along the great waterways, from Cataraqui to Crevecoeur. [Footnote: Fort Crevecoeur was La Salle's post in the heart of the Illinois country.] He sincerely believed that these were the best guarantees of the king's power on the Great Lakes and in the valley of the Mississippi. ”

“ Her father's fort was the Castle Dangerous of Canada; and it was but two years before that her mother, left with three or four 309 armed men, and beset by the Iroquois, threw herself with her followers into the blockhouse, and held the assailants two days at bay, till the Marquis de Crisasi came with troops to her relief. [22]
[22] La Potherie, I. 326.
From the moment when the Canadians found a chief whom they could trust, and the firm old hand of Frontenac grasped the reins of their destiny, a spirit of hardihood and energy grew up in all this rugged population ”

“ Now, Frontenac had built a fort near the lower end of Lake Ontario, about the site of Kingston. It had the look of being a great public benefit, for it would help to hold the Iroquois in check and it would cut off trade from the English. On these grounds the expense of building it was justified. But the Jesuits and the fur-traders were opposed to it, the fur-traders because they foresaw the loss of a large part of their trade. Indians bringing their annual canoe-loads of peltry to market would not take the long trip to Montreal and Quebec, if they could barter them off at a much nearer point. ”

“ Frontenac determined to construct this fort before the return of the vessels from France. In order to obtain the necessary men, boats and canoes, he relied on the precedent of M. de Courcelles' official visit as governor general to Lake Ontario. To impress the Indians with the dignity of the French conquerors, he called a corvée from Quebec, Montreal, Three Rivers and other places to supply the above at their own expense. In the meantime he had built two bateaux to face the rapids and currents and mounted on them two pieces of cannon. ”

“ There was a war and a peace party. To show his power, De Frontenac conceived the idea of a great expedition against the Indians. He collected regulars, militia, and all the friendly Indians to be procured, and, marching to Cataraqui, passed into the country of the Onondagos. On entering a lake, it was ascertained by the symbol of two bundles of rushes, that 1,434 fighting men were in readiness to receive them. De Frontenac threw up an earthwork, or log fort, to fall back upon, and proceeded. De Callières, Governor of Montreal, commanded the left wing ”

“ It was on this occasion that Tonty, La Salle's lieutenant, nearly lost his life at Fort Crèvecoeur. The question now was whether the French would stand idly by and see their allies destroyed. If they did, not only would their influence over the tribes trusting in their protection be annihilated, but they might soon have to fight for their own preservation without any native assistance. Frontenac sent messages to the Iroquois enjoining them to keep the peace ”