conveniences annexed to it than Oswegatche, having an excellent harbour, with a strong fortification well garrisoned.[1] It affords excellent accommodation for shipping, and may be considered as the naval storehouse for supplying Niagara and the other posts. There are vessels of considerable bulk continually sailing from thence to Niagara, Oswego, &c.—There is also a commodore of the Lakes, whose residence is on the island.
Fort Oswego, on Lake Ontario, formerly called Lake Frontenac, is a good fortification, and capable of containing six hundred men. This post is particularly important, as it is the key to the United States, and commands the opening to the North, or Hudson's River, protecting the trade with the Indians who live on the banks of the River St. Laurence, and the whole extent of the great sheet of water near which it stands, reckoned about eighty leagues in length, and in some places from twenty-five to thirty broad.[2]
When the English were in possession of the Colonies,
————
- ↑ Haldimand fortified Carleton Island at the mouth of Lake Ontario, by sending thither (1778) three companies of the 47th regiment to erect a post.—Ed.
- ↑ The mouth of the Oswego River was early noted as an important station in relation to the Iroquois country and the fur-trade. Champlain passed here in 1615, and Frontenac in 1692. In 1721, Governor Burnet of New York secured permission from the Iroquois to erect a trading post at this spot, and despite the protests of the French built a fort in 1726-27. This post of Choueguen (so called by the French) was especially obnoxious to the French fur-traders; all the more so, when (1743) Sir William Johnson built his trading post beneath its walls. Montcalm organized an expedition, and captured it in 1756; but was compelled to retreat when Forbes penetrated Pennsylvania. It was also the rendezvous for the successful British attack on Fort Frontenac in 1758. After the fall of New France, the British garrisoned and repaired the fort, and it was from here that St. Leger started on his expedition up the Mohawk Valley in 1777. It was headquarters for the Indian and Tory scalping parties - Butler, Brant, and Johnson started thence on their raids. It was in British hands at the close of the Revolution, and not delivered to the Americans until 1796. Traces of the British fort were to be seen in 1839.—Ed.
