Portage Paths: The Keys of the ContinentHulbert, Archer Butler
History
Portage Paths: The Keys of the Continent
Hulbert, Archer Butler
Portages -- North America
A pig-sty at Fort Recovery, Ohio, marks the Fort Recovery angle of the
famous Greenville Treaty line. Underneath the pen lies the stone which
marks the angle and the site of that historic fort and, consequently,
St. Clair's battle-ground. The line runs twenty-one miles westward to
the pillar raised on Loramie Creek, the historic site of the old French
trading post in 40° 16['] north latitude 7° 15[''] west longitude; at
the other angle on the Muskingum River the site of Fort Laurens is also
a matter of record. In this way, it is true, many points of interest
have a definite location but this is true in only a few cases. The
writer, recently returning from a tour through Illinois on George Rogers
Clark's old route to the conquest of Vincennes took his notes at once to
Madison, Wisconsin to revise them from the correspondence carried on by
Lyman C. Draper, a generation ago, with the oldest residents of
Illinois concerning Clark's route. The remarkable contrast between
testimony obtainable now and that secured a generation ago could not
have been more strikingly impressive. Indecision, indefiniteness,
inaccuracy grow more and more pronounced as the days draw by and an
actual experience such as this compels one interested in our country's
development to cry out against permitting more time to be lost.
Pennsylvania has set a good example in forwarding a minute study of her
frontier forts, two large volumes having been published by that state on
the subject. There are signs that there is an awakening interest in
definitely locating and marking historic sites. It need not be an
expensive work. It is certainly an important one. And the courses of the
important carrying places should be early considered.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] For an account of the portages in the dry season on the Scioto see
_Historic Highways of America_, vol. ii, pp. 55-60.
[2] _The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents_, vol. xxxvii, pp.
211-213.
[3] _Id._, pp. 65-67.
[4] _Id._, vol. xlix, pp. 47-49.
[5] _Id._, pp. 261-263.
[6] _Id._, vol. viii, pp. 75-77.
[7] _Id._, vol. xxxix, pp. 47-49.
[8] _Id._, vol. xii, pp. 117-121.
[9] As outlined in _Historic Highways of America_, vol. iii, ch. iii.
This route of the French to the greater lakes took them away from the
Ohio River and long delayed their occupation of the Allegheny and Ohio
valleys.
[10] Hinsdale's _Old Northwest_, pp. 34-35.
[11] _Id._, p. 36.
[12] Céloron on his journey to the Ohio in 1749 did not cross Lake
Ontario by the same route pursued by his Indian retinue (Céloron's
Journal, in Darlington's _Fort Pitt_, p. 11).
[13] William E. Dodge's _Old New York_, p. 36.
[14] For a touching instance, see _Jesuit Relations ana Allied
Documents_, vol. lxvi, p. 281.
[15] _The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents_, vol. lxix, p. 159.
[16] _Documentary History of New York_, vol. ii, p. 868.
[17] Sylvester's_ Northern New York_, p. 289; Céloron's Journal in
Darlington's _Fort Pitt_, p. 12.
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