The fort is formed of pickets, and is a square, with a small bastion at each angle. The surrounding plain is cleared to an extent of about sixty acres, to serve for exercising the garrison in military evolutions, and also to prevent surprise from an enemy. On the esplanade is a small brass howitzer, and a {252} brass caronade two pounder, both mounted on field carriages, and a centinel is always kept here on guard. The garrison consists of about fifty men. Some recruits were exercising. They were clean, and tolerably well clothed, and were marched in to the barrack yard preceded by two good drums and as many fifes. The house of captain Bissel the commandant, is without the pickets.
Though the situation of Massack is pleasant and apparently healthy, it is a station which will only suit such officers as are fond of retirement, as there is no kind of society out of the garrison, and there are only a few settlements in the neighbourhood, which supply it with fresh stock.
This was one of the chain of posts which the French occupied between Detroit and Orleans, when that nation possessed Canada and Louisiana. It had fallen into ruin, but it has been reconstructed by the United States' government. It keeps its original name, which it derived from a massacre of the French garrison by the Indians.[182]
At one o'clock we proceeded on our voyage, and in half a mile turning a little to the right with the river, we entered a very long reach in a W. N. W. direction, and at three miles passed a new settlement on the right where the river
