Fort Stanwix was built by the British at the head of navigation on the Mohawk River (where the city of Rome, New York, now stands), in 1758, at a cost of $266,000. Here was held the treaty of 1768, by which a general purchase of Indian lands was made, and the Iroquois boundaries settled. Early in the Revolution it fell into American hands, and was re-christened Fort Schuyler, which withstood the siege of St. Leger and his Indian braves in 1777. It is claimed that the present national flag, as adopted by Congress in 1777, was first raised over the battlements of Fort Schuyler. After the Revolution, the fort was rebuilt, and reverted to its original name. Here were held important treaties with the Iroquois in 1784 and 1788, in the latter of which much land in the Mohawk Valley was ceded to the whites. The settlement about the fort was made in 1785, by Connecticut emigrants.—ED. Footnote 30: For history of Detroit see vol. i of the present series, p. 55, note 18.—ED. Footnote 31: For the history of Mackinac, see “Story of Mackinac,” in Thwaites’s _How George Rogers Clark won the Northwest, and Other Essays in Western History_ (Chicago, 1903). By the “isthmus” the author means the Upper Peninsula of Michigan; the “point of land” must signify the island of Mackinac. The “mouth of the Illinois” is the outlet of Lake Michigan.—ED. Footnote 32: Grand Portage was the route by the Pigeon River (the present boundary between Minnesota and Ontario) to the lakes and streams of the Northwest. The term was first applied to the carrying place, nine miles long, and later to a landing place somewhat south of the mouth of the river. This route was first explored by La Vérendrye in 1731—(see _Wisconsin Historical Collections_, xvii, for a map of this region drawn by an Indian for La Vérendrye). It became the established fur-trade route to the Northwest, and a place of great importance as a rendezvous for voyageurs. For a description of the route and the traders gathered here in the latter part of the eighteenth century, see Mackenzie, _Voyages through North America_ (London, 1801).—ED. Footnote 33: For the British determination to retain the Northern and Western posts, and arguments in regard to their legal right, see “Calendar of Haldimand Papers,” _Canadian Archives_, 1885–89, also McLaughlin, “Western Posts and the British Debts,” in American Historical Association _Report_, 1894.—ED. Footnote 34: This action took place September 24, 1775, and was the occasion of the capture and imprisonment of Ethan Allen. For his own narrative of this event, see Hall, _Ethan Allen_ (New York, 1892), pp. 110–119.—ED. Footnote 35: