In May I took a trip to Fort George, situated on a lake of the same name, called by the French, Saint Sacrement, where I stayed with some of the Mohawks, who were encamped there.[1] In the beginning of the French and Indian war in 1757, there was a remarkable instance of resolution and cool deliberate courage in one of these Savages, occasioned by a sentence being passed upon a soldier to receive five hundred lashes for intoxication.
An Indian known by the name of Silver Heels, from
his superior agility, as well as his admirable finesse in
the art of war, and who had killed more of the enemy than
any one of the tribes in alliance with Great Britain, accidentally
came into the fort just before the soldier was
to receive his punishment, and expressed his displeasure
that a man should be so shamefully disgraced. He went
up to the commanding officer, and asked him what crime
the soldier had committed: the officer not chusing to be
questioned, ordered one of his men to send Silver Heels
away, and to inform him that the company of Indians
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- ↑ Lake George was originally named Lac du St. Sacrement, by the Jesuit missionary and martyr Isaac Jogues, who was there in 1646. On his expedition of 1755, Sir William Johnson changed the name in honor of his king. Lakes George and Champlain were of strategic importance in all the French wars, and that of the Revolution. Fort George was a small post on an eminence a half mile southeast of Fort William Henry, built in 1759 after the destruction of the latter. Abandoned temporarily during Burgoyne's invasion, the garrison were surprised and captured by Carleton (October, 1780), and the fortification destroyed. New York State has appropriated the land around the ruins of this fort for Fort George Battle Park.—Ed.
