HISTORIC HIGHWAYS OF AMERICA VOLUME 7 HISTORIC HIGHWAYS OF AMERICA VOLUME 7 Portage Paths THE KEYS OF THE CONTINENT BY ARCHER BUTLER HULBERT _With Maps_ [Illustration] THE ARTHUR H. CLARK COMPANY CLEVELAND, OHIO 1903 COPYRIGHT, 1903 BY THE ARTHUR H. CLARK COMPANY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE 9 PART I: PORTAGE PATHS I. NATURE AND USE OF PORTAGES 15 II. THE EVOLUTION OF PORTAGES 51 PART II: A CATALOGUE OF AMERICAN PORTAGES I. INTRODUCTORY 85 II. NEW ENGLAND AND CANADIAN PORTAGES 94 III. NEW YORK PORTAGES 122 IV. PORTAGES TO THE MISSISSIPPI BASIN 151 ILLUSTRATIONS I. THE MORRIS MAP OF 1749: NORTHERN ENGLISH COLONIES 55 II. THE OLD ONEIDA PORTAGE IN 1756 (ROME, NEW YORK) 142 PREFACE The little portage pathways which connected the heads of our rivers and lakes or offered the _voyageur_ a thoroughfare around the cataracts and rapids of our rivers were, as the subtitle of this volume suggests, the "Keys of the Continent" a century or so ago. The forts, chapels, trading stations, treaty houses, council fires, boundary stones, camp grounds, and villages located at these strategic points all prove this. The study of these routes brings one at once face to face with old-time problems from a point of view almost never otherwise gained. The newness and value of reviewing historic movements from the standpoint of highways is strikingly emphasized in the case of portage paths. While studying them, one seems to rise on heights of ground like those these pathways spanned--and from that altitude, gazing backward, to get a better perspective of the military and social movements which made these little roads historic. The difficulty of treating such a broad subject in a single monograph must be apparent. Portages are found wherever lakes or rivers lie, and our subject is therefore as broad as the continent. It is obvious that in a limited space it is possible to treat only of portages most used and best known--which most influenced our history. These are practically included in the territory lying south of the Great Lakes between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mississippi River. Historically, too, we are taken back to the early days of our history when America was coextensive with the continent, for the important portages were those binding the St. Lawrence with the rivers of New England, and the tributaries of the Great Lakes with those of the Mississippi.