Portage Paths: The Keys of the Continent

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 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.”[20] Thus the Jesuits “had anticipated by twenty years Frontenac’s plan of building a fort for the control of Lake Ontario.”[21] 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.”[22]

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.[23] 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.[24] 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.[25] 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.”[26]

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.”[27]

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....”[28] 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.”[29]

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;[30] 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.[31] 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.[32] 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.”[33] 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.[34]

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.

PART II

A Catalogue of American Portages

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

As introductory to the description of the more noted American portages, it will be advantageous to present them at a bird’s-eye view in the form of a comparative chart stating the names and termini of each, with a remark concerning its specific function:

CHAPTER II

NEW ENGLAND—CANADIAN PORTAGES

The territory lying between the St. Lawrence River and the Atlantic seaboard offers an unexcelled field for the study of portage paths and their part in the history of the continent. The student of this branch of archæology finds at his disposal the admirable studies of Dr. William F. Ganong, which cover an important portion of this field.[35] From these studies (the best published account) the following general statements concerning Indian routes of travel are very enlightening:

“The Indians of New Brunswick, like others of North America, were, within certain limits, great wanderers. For hunting, war, or treaty making, they passed incessantly not only throughout their own territory, but over that limit into the lands of other tribes. The Indian tribes of Acadia have never, within historic times, been at war with one another, but they joined in war against other tribes and mingled often with one another for that and other reasons. In facilities for such travels our Indians were exceptionally fortunate, for the Province is everywhere intersected by rivers readily navigable by their light canoes. Indeed I doubt if anywhere else in the world is an equal extent of territory so completely watered by navigable streams, or whether in any other country canoe navigation was ever brought to such a pitch of perfection or so exclusively relied upon for locomotion. The principal streams of the Province lead together curiously in pairs, the country is almost invariably easy to travel between their sources, and a route may be found in almost any desired direction.... No doubt, an Indian in selecting his route of travel to a given point, where more than one offered, would average up, as a white man would do, the advantages and drawbacks of each for that particular season, taking account of the length of the routes, amount of falls and portaging, the height of the water, etc., and his decision would be a resultant of all the conditions and would be different in different seasons. It is not easy to understand why so many routes from the St. John to Quebec were in use, unless some offered advantages at one time, others at another. Between the heads of the principal rivers were portage paths. Some of these are but a mile or two long—others longer. Some of these portages are still in use and uninfluenced by civilization. A good type is that between Nictor Lake and Nepisiguit Lake, which I have recently seen. The path is but wide enough to allow a man and canoe to pass. Where it is crossed by newly fallen trees the first passer either cuts them out, steps over them, or goes round, as may be easiest, and his example is followed by the next. In this way the exact line of the path is constantly changing though in the main its course is kept. No doubt some of these paths are of great antiquity. Gesner states that one of the most used, that between Eel River Lake and North Lake, on the route from the St. John to the Penobscot, had been used so long that the solid rocks had been worn into furrows by the tread of moccasined feet; and Kidder quotes this and comments upon it as probably the most ancient evidence of mankind in New England. A somewhat similar statement is made by Monro as to the Misseguash—Baie Verte portage. I have seen something very similar on the old portage path around Indian Falls on the Nepisiguit, but I am inclined to think it is the hob-nailed and spiked shoes of the lumbermen which have scored these rocks, and not Indian moccasins and it is altogether likely that this explanation will apply also to the case mentioned by Gesner, whose over-enthusiastic temperament led him into exaggerated statements. In New Brunswick the lines of regular travel seem to have followed exclusively the rivers and the portage paths between their heads, and there is no evidence whatever of former extensive trails leading from one locality to another through the woods, such as are well known to have existed in Massachusetts. The difference in the distribution and navigability of the rivers amply explains this difference. It is not, of course, to be supposed that the Indians never departed from these routes; in their hunting expeditions they undoubtedly wandered far and wide, and especially in the valleys of the smaller and navigable brooks. Moreover, they undoubtedly had portages used only on rare occasions, and also at times forced their way over between streams where there was no regular route, but in general the main rivers gave them ample facilities for through travel from one part of the Province to another, and they had no other method. The birch canoe was the universal vehicle of locomotion to the New Brunswick Indian; it was to him what the pony is to the Indian of the West.

“The labour of crossing the portages was always severe, but the Indians took, and take, it philosophically, as they do everything that cannot be helped. While canoe travel in good weather, on full and easy rivers, is altogether charming, it becomes otherwise when low water, long portages and bad weather prevail. We obtain vivid pictures of its hardships from the narratives of St. Valier, and from several of the Jesuit missionaries. Since many of the portage paths are still in use by Indians, hunters, and lumbermen, their positions are easy to identify, and many of them are marked upon the excellent maps of the Geological Survey. Many others, however, have been long disused, and have been more or less obliterated by settlement, or by roads which follow them, and these are not marked upon our recent maps. I have made a special effort to determine the exact courses of these portages before they are lost forever, and where I have been able to find them by the aid of residents I have given them on the small maps accompanying this paper. All portages known to me are marked upon the map of New Brunswick, in the Pre-historic or Indian period accompanying this paper, and their routes of travel are in red on the same map. The lines show how thoroughly intersected the Province was by their routes. This map does not by any means mark all the navigable rivers, but only those which form parts of through routes of travel. The relative importance of routes I have tried to represent by the breadth of the lines, the most important routes having the broadest lines. Many of the most ancient portages had distinct names but I have not recovered any of these. Kidder gives as the ancient Indian name of Eel River—North Lake Portage the name Metagmouchchesh (variously spelled by him), and I have heard that more than one was called simply “The Hunters’ Portage” by the Indians, possibly to distinguish the less important ones used only in hunting from those of the through routes. When Portages are spoken of at this day they are usually given the name of the place towards which they lead; thus, a person on the Tobique would refer to the portage at the head of that river as the Nepisiguit, or the Bathurst Portage, and on the Nepisiguit, he would speak of it as the Tobique Portage. This usage seems to be old and perhaps it is widespread. Thus Bishop Plessis, in his journal of 1812, speaking of the portage between Tracadie and Tabusintac Rivers (the latter leading to Neguac), says (page 169): ‘We reached a portage of two miles which the people of Tracadie call the Nigauek Portage, and those of Nigauek the Tracadie Portage.’

“The situations of many of the old portages are preserved to us in place names. Thus we have Portage Bridge, at the head of the Misseguash; Portage Bank, on the Miramichi, near Boiestown (not on the maps); Portage River, on the Northwest Miramichi, also as a branch of the Tracadie, also west of Point Escuminac, and also south of it; Portage Brook, on the Nepisiguit, leading to the Upsalquitch; Portage Lake, between Long and Serpentine Lakes; Portage Station, on the Intercolonial Railway. Kingston Creek, at the mouth of the Belleisle, was formerly called Portage Creek. Anagance is the Maliseet word for Portage; and Wagan and Wagansis, on the Restigouche and Grand River, are the Micmac for Portage, and a diminutive of it.”[36]

The chief routes of travel were along the sea-coasts and up and down the valley of the St. John River—the latter routes being of most importance.

“Of all Indian routes,” writes Dr. Ganong, “in what is now the Province of New Brunswick, the most important by far was that along the River St. John. This river was, and is, an ideal stream for canoe navigation. It not only has easy communication with every other river system in this and the neighbouring provinces, but it is in itself very easy to travel.... The St. John rises in Maine and its head waters interlock with those of the Penobscot, and with the Etechemin flowing into the St. Lawrence near Quebec.”

Under the system of the St. John-Restigouche portage Dr. Ganong thus describes the Grand River—Wagan path:

“This was the most travelled of all routes across the Province. The Grand River is easy of navigation up to the Wagansis (i.e., Little Wagan), up which canoes could be taken for some two miles. A level portage of two or three miles leads into the Wagan (Micmac O-wok-un, ‘a portage’) a muddy, winding brook, which flows into the Restigouche, which to its mouth is a swift but smooth-flowing stream, unbroken by a fall, and almost without rapids. The total fall from the portage is not over 500 feet, and hence it is far easier to ascend than the Nepisiguit, and consequently was the main route across from Bay Chaleur to the St. John. For the upper waters of the St. John a route from the mouth of the Nepisiguit by Bay Chaleur to the Restigouche and thence to the St. John would be both considerably shorter and much easier than by the Nepisiguit—Tobique route.

“This portage is marked on Bouchette, 1815, Bonner, 1820, Lockwood, 1826, Wilkinson, 1859, and the Geological Survey Map. On Van Velden’s original survey map of the Restigouche, 1786, a ‘Carrying-place across the highlands’ about nine miles is given, doubtless a portage directly from Wagan to Grand River. This route was taken by Plessis in 1812, (Journal, 267), by Gordon (p. 23), who fully describes it, and by many others. It is said in McGregor’s British America, 1833 (II., 66), that the courier then travelled up this river with mails for New Brunswick and Canada, evidently by this route. Formerly the alders which blocked the Wagan and Wagansis were cut out by travellers, and even by workmen paid by the Provincial Government (as I have been told), but since a road has been cut within a few years from the St. John directly through to the Restigouche at the mouth of the Wagan, this route is no longer used, and probably is now practically impassable.”

Of the St. John—St. Lawrence system Dr. Ganong describes seven routes; we use his own words:

Touladi—Trois Pistoles Portage

This was one of the principal routes from the St. John to Quebec. It led through Lake Temiscouata by the Touladi River to Lac des Aigles, thence to Lac des Islets, thence by a short portage path to the Bois-bouscache River and down the Trois Pistoles. This route is described in Bailey and McInnes’ Geological Report of 1888, M, pages 26, 28, 29, where it is called “one of the main highways ... between the St. John River and the St. Lawrence.”

Ashberish—Trois Pistoles Portage

Another route from Temiscouata to Trois Pistoles was by way of the Ashberish River. This portage is marked on Bouchette, 1831, and is mentioned by him in his Topographical Dictionary, and by Bailey in his ‘St. John River’ (page 48). It was by either this or the last-mentioned route that Captain Pote was taken to Quebec in 1745, as he describes in his Journal, but the description is not clear as to which route was followed. The compass directions and the portages and lakes mentioned by him would rather indicate the Ashberish route, though the editor of the Journal sends him by the Lac des Aigles. This route is shown on the Franquelin-DeMeulles Map of 1686, with the continuous line used on that map for portage routes, and it is probably this route that is marked on Bellin of 1744, and on many following him.

Temiscouta—Rivière du Loup Portage

As early as 1746 a portage path was projected along this route where now runs the highway road. A document of 1746 (Quebec MS. IV., 311) reads, “Nous donnons les ordres nécessaires pour faire pratiquer un chemin ou sentier d’environ 3 pieds dans le portage depuis la Rivière du Loup à 40 lieues audessous de Québec jusques au Lac Témisquata d’ou l’on va en canot par la rivière St. Jean jusqu’à Beaubassin, et ce pour faciliter la communication avec l’Escadre et pour y faire passer quelques détachement de françois et sauvages s’il est nécessaire.” Whether or not this path was made we do not know. In 1761 this route was examined by Captain Peach (as a map in the Public Record Office shows), and about 1785, a road was cut along it as a part of the post route from Quebec to Nova Scotia. From that time to the present it has been much travelled, and is often referred to in documents and books.

St. Francis—Rivière du Loup Portage

The exact course of this portage I have not been able to locate, but it probably ran from Lake Pohenegamook to some of the lakes on the La Fourche branch of the Rivière du Loup. The Indian name of the St. Francis, Peech-un-ee-gan-uk means the Long Portage (Peech, long, oo-ne-gun, a portage, uk, locative). The first recorded use of this portage is in Le Clercq in his “Établissement de la Foi.” He states that about 1624, Rècollet missionaries came to Acadia from Acquitaine, and thence went to Quebec in canoes by the River Loup with two Frenchmen and five Indians. It is first shown roughly on a manuscript map of 1688, very clearly on Bellin, of 1744, and on several others following him, and on Bouchette of 1815. It is mentioned in a document of 1700 (Quebec MS. V. 348) as four leagues in length. It was by this route St. Valier came from Quebec to Acadia in 1686 or 1687, and a very detailed account of the difficulties of the voyage is given in his narrative. He states that he travelled a short distance on the Rivière du Loup and Rivière des Branches and a long distance on the St. Francis. This route he describes as shorter but harder than that ordinarily used.

On the unpublished DeRozier map of 1699 two portages are shown in this region, one from some branch of what is apparently the St. Francis to the Trois Pistoles, and one from another river to the westward of the St. Francis, perhaps from Lac de l’Est, to the Rivière du Loup, but they are given too inaccurately to admit of identification.

Between the Temiscouata and St. Francis basins are several portages; one from Long Lake at the head of the Cabano to the St. Francis, and another from Long Lake to Baker Lake; and there are other minor ones, all marked on the Geological Survey map.

Black River—Ouelle Portage

On some early maps, such as Bellin, 1744, the Ouelle is made to head with a branch of the St. John, which can be only the Black River. The Morris map of 1749 marks a portage from the St. John to the Ouelle, and has this statement: “Expresses have passed in seven days by these Rivers from Chiegnecto to Quebec.” The exact route of this portage I have not been able to determine.

North-West Branch—Rivière du Sud Portage

This portage is first referred to in a letter of 1685 from Dénonville to the Minister: “Je joins a cette carte un petit dessin du chemin le plus court pour se rendre d’icy en huict jours de temps au Port Royal en Acadie, par une rivière que l’on nomme du Sud et qui n’est qu’a huict ou dix lieues au dessous de Quebec. On le ramonte environ dix lieues et par un portage de trois lieues on tombe dans celle de St. Jean qui entre dans la baye du Port Royal.” This is probably the Grand Portage referred to by Ward Chipman in one of his letters of the last century.

St. John Lake-Etchemin Portage

Portages between these rivers are mentioned by Bouchette under “Etchemin” in his Topographical Dictionary. The river received its name from its use by the Etchemins (Maliseets and Penobscots) as a route to Quebec.

A large portion of the St. John Valley lies in the state of Maine and all that was true of New Brunswick, so far as early methods of locomotion are concerned, was and is true of Maine in a great measure. Maine, however, was not bounded on two sides by the ocean.

Both the Kennebec and Penobscot Rivers were ancient and important routes of travel between Quebec and the sea. Of the two the Penobscot was, perhaps, the easier to navigate but the Kennebec was the more important route. James Sullivan writing of the Kennebec in the last decade of the eighteenth century observes: “The Kenebeck ... receives the eastern branch, at fifty miles distance from Noridgewock. The main branch of the Kenebeck, winding into the wilderness, forms a necessity for several carrying places, one of which, called the Great Carrying Place, is five miles across, and the river’s course gives a distance of thirty-five miles, for that which is gained by five on the dry land. At one hundred miles distance, or perhaps more from the mouth of the eastern branch, the source of the main or western branch of the Kenebeck is found extended a great distance along side the river Chaudière, which carries the waters from the high lands into the St. Lawrence. The best description of this branch of the Kenebeck, is had from the Officers who passed this route under the command of General Arnold, in 1775.... The carrying place from boatable waters in it, to boatable waters in the river Chaudière, is only five miles over.”[37]

Among the most interesting maps of the Kennebec-Chaudière route may be mentioned Montresor’s map of 1761, “A Draught of a route from Quebec to Fort Halifax,” in the British Museum.[38] The route is there given as up the “Yadatsou Chaudiere or Kettle River.” When Wolf River was reached it was ascended; then to “River Ahoudaounkese.” Here was a portage of five miles to within about that distance of Lake Oukeahoungauta; portage of about one half mile to Loon Lake; thence into Moosehead Lake at the head of the east branch of the Kennebec. A portage could be made into the Penobscot; and at the southeastern extremity of Moosehead Lake are the words “Portage to the Penobscot.” The return route was up the Kennebec to “The Great Carrying Place to River of Tewyongyadight or the Dead River.” This was Arnold’s route, already referred to by Mr. Sullivan. Ascending the Dead to “The Amaguntic Carrying Place” (a portage of about four miles) the route is marked to “the River of Mekantique” and through “The meadow of Mekantique;” thence through “Lake of Me’ Kantique de St Augustin” and into the Chaudière.

Perhaps the earliest map showing a road throughout the Kennebec and Chaudière valleys is “A New Map of Nova Scotia & Cape Britain” (1755) in the British Public Records Office.[39] The road bears the name “Kenebec Road.”

Among the Haldimand Papers in the British Museum[40] is a most interesting “Journal from the last settlements on the Chaudiere to the first Inhabitants on Kennebec River kept by Hugh Finley, from the 13th of September that he left Quebec until the 30th that he arrived at Falmouth in Casco Bay in the P[r]ovince of the Massachusets Bay—1773.” Finley had been appointed “Surveyor of Post roads on the Continent of North America” and, in view of the tedious length and the common retardments of the Lake Champlain route between Canada and New England, determined to explore the Chaudière-Kennebec route. Four Indian guides accompanied the surveyor, who were “to mark (as they should pass along in their rough way) the Path by which a good road might be cut.” The last farm on the Chaudière was “52 Miles S. Easterly of Quebec.” “The reaches in this river are long between rapid and rapid, but navigable for batteaus only.” On the fifteenth the party had reached “Rapide du Diable;” seven miles further was “La Famine” River where were two huts. Four miles further they arrived at “des loups” River. This was the common upward route of travel as the upper Chaudière route was interrupted by ponds, swamps, etc. Concerning Indian maps Mr. Finley makes an interesting statement: “It is impossible to guess distances from an Indian draft, that people have no idea of proportion.”

On the eighteenth the party encamped early in the afternoon “on purpose to pack up our Provisions &c. in proper Packages to be distributed in proportional burthens to each of the party as we were next day to proceed thro the woods.” Then came a desperate journey of nine miles in nine hours up steeps, over and under trees which tore the canoes and almost exhausted their bearers. At the end of two small lakes a half mile portage brought the travelers to another lake. “Half over this carrying place is the just hight of Land between Canada & New England,” wrote Mr. Finley, “consequently the boundary line between the Province of Quebec and Massachusets Bay will be a line drawn half way between the Lake we just left and this Lake.”

According to Finley this portage was ninety-six miles from Quebec and forty-six from the last house on the Chaudière—by the route he had traversed. He proceeded down the Kennebec, up the “Androcogkin” to Brunswick and across by land to Casco Bay.