Old Trails on the Niagara Frontier Part 9

We were about to give them another shot, when the officer of the day came up and told us the orders from headquarters were not to fire unless it was absolutely necessary, that we must be saving of our ammunition. I told him that it was their own ball that we had just sent back. When he saw the execution it had done he smiled and went on, remarking, "They begin to fire a little lower." "Yes,"

said I, "and as that was the first, we thought we would send it back and let them know we did not want it, that we had b.a.l.l.s of our own."

This incident was the beginning of more active operations. For the next nine days and nights there was a great deal of firing, with one killed and three wounded. The Patriot army held on to its absurd stronghold for four weeks, causing, as Marsh quaintly puts it, "much noise and confusion on both sides"; and he at least was keenly disappointed when it was evacuated, Jan. 12, 1838. The handful of Patriots scattered and Chippewa composed herself to the repose which, but for one ripple of disturbance in 1866, continues to the present day.

Up to the end of this abortive campaign Robert Marsh's chief misadventure had been to cut himself off, practically, from a safe return to the community where his best interests lay. But he had a stout heart if a perverse head. "I was born of Patriot parentage," he boasted; "I am not a Patriot today and tomorrow the reverse"; and being fairly identified with the rebels, he determined to woo the fortunes of war wherever opportunity offered. His ardor must have been considerable, for he made his way in the dead of winter from Buffalo to Detroit; just how I do not know; but he speaks of arriving at Sandusky "after a tedious walk of five days." Here he joined a party for an attack on Malden, but the Patriots were themselves attacked by some 300 Canadian troops who came across the lake in sleighs; there was a lively fight on the ice, with some loss of life, when each party was glad to retire.

Next he tried it with a band of rebels on Fighting Island, below Detroit; treachery and "the power of British gold" seem to have kept Canada from falling into their hands; and presently, "being sick of island fighting," as he puts it, he made his way to Detroit, where, all through that troubled summer of '38, he appears to have been one of the most active and ardent of the plotters. Certain it is that he was promptly to the front for the battle of Windsor, and was with the invaders on Dec. 4, 1838, when a band of 164 misguided men crossed the Detroit River to take Canada. He was "Lieutenant" Marsh on this expedition, but it was the emptiest of honors. At four in the morning they attacked the barracks on the river banks above Windsor, and, as often happens with the most fatuous enterprises, met at the outset with success. They burned the barracks and took thirty-eight prisoners (whom they could not hold), looking meanwhile across the river for help which never came. "We were about planting our standard," wrote Marsh afterward; "the flag was a splendid one, with two stars for Upper and Lower Canada. We had just succeeded in getting a long spar and was in the act of raising it, as the cry was heard,--'There comes the Red-coats! There are the dragoons!'" Our Patriot, it will be observed, made no nice distinctions between British and Canadian troops; that distinction will not fail to be made for him, in a province which has always claimed the honor--to which it is fully ent.i.tled--of putting down this troublesome uprising without having to call for help upon the British regulars. But the invaders did not raise nice points then. They hastily formed and withstood the attack for a little; but it was a hopeless stand, for numbers and discipline were all on the other side.

According to Marsh, the regulars numbered 600. There was sharp firing, eleven Patriots and forty-four Canadians were killed; and seeing this, and learning, later than his friends across the river, that discretion is the better part of valor, he did the only thing that remained to do--he took to the woods.

The woods were full just then of discreet Patriots, and several of them held a breathless council of war. Here is Marsh's account of it:

It was finally concluded for every man to do the best he could for himself. We accordingly separated and I found myself pursued by a man hollowing at the top of his voice, "Stop there, stop, you d.a.m.ned rebel, or I'll shoot you! stop, stop!" I was near a fence at that time crossing a field. I proceeded to the fence, dropped on one knee, put my rifle through the fence, took deliberate aim. He had a gun and was gaining on me. I had a cannister of powder, pouch of b.a.l.l.s, two pistols and an overcoat on, which prevented me from attempting to run. I saw all hopes of escape was useless; I discharged my rifle, but cannot say whether it hit the mark or not, for I did not look, but immediately rose and walked off. At any rate I heard no more "Stop there, you d.a.m.ned rebel."

Marsh's narrative is too diffuse, not to mention other faults, for me to follow it _verbatim et (il-)literatim_. I give the events of the next few days as simply as possible. After he fired his gun through the fence at the red-coat who followed no more--his last shot, be it remarked, for the relief of Canada--he found that he was very tired. It was late in the day of the battle and he had eaten nothing for nearly forty-eight hours. Pus.h.i.+ng on through the woods he came to a barn, but had scarcely entered when it was surrounded by ten or twelve "dragoons," as he calls them. He scrambled up a ladder to the hay-mow, dug a hole in the hay, crawled in and smoothed it over himself, and, he says, "had just got a pistol in each hand as the door flew open; in they rushed, crying, 'Come out, you d.a.m.ned rebel, we'll shoot you, we'll not take you before the Colonel to be shot, come out, come out, we'll hang you.' Said another, 'We'll quarter you and feed you to the hogs as we've just served one!'

They thrust their swords into the hay, and threatened to burn the barn; but as it belonged to one of their sort, they thought better of it and went off. They soon came back, and saying they would place a sentry, disappeared again." Marsh tore up certain papers which he feared would be troublesome if found on him and then slept. It was dark when he awoke. He crept out of the barn and wandered through the woods until daylight, narrowly escaping some Indians. He applied at the house of a French settler for something to eat; frankly admitting, what it obviously was folly to deny, that he was a fugitive. Three "large bony Frenchmen" came to the door, made him their prisoner and marched him off through the woods to Sandwich, where he was stripped of his valuables and locked up with several others, his captors cheerfully a.s.suring them that they would have a fine shooting-match tomorrow. Marsh stoutly maintained that, as he owed the Queen no allegiance, he was not a rebel; but his protests did him no good. He was not shot on the morrow, although others of the captives were summarily executed, without a pretext of trial or even a chance to say their prayers.

And now begins an imprisonment of ten months full of such distress and atrocity that I should not please, however much I might edify, by its recital. We read today of the horrors of Spanish and Turkish ma.s.sacres or of Siberian prisons, and every page of history has its record of inhumanity--its Black Hole, its Dartmoor, its Andersonville. In this dishonor roll of official outrages surely may be included the backwoods prisons of Upper Canada in 1838 and '39. Our misadventurer was s.h.i.+fted from one to another. At Fort Malden, on the sh.o.r.e of Lake Erie, he was kept for seven weeks in a small room with twenty-eight other men. It was the dead of winter, but they had no warmth save from their emaciated and vermin-infested bodies. They were ironed two and two, day and night.

They were so crowded that there was not floor-room for all to sleep at once. According to Marsh, who afterwards wrote a minute record of this imprisonment, their feeding and care would have been fatal to a herd of hogs. The acme of the miseries of the prison at Fort Malden I cannot even hint at with propriety. When transferred from Sandwich to Malden, and later from Malden to London, Marsh, like many of his fellow sufferers, had his feet frozen; and when his limbs swelled so that life itself was threatened, it was not the surgeon but a clumsy blacksmith who cut off the irons and supplied new ones.

In London the treatment of Malden was repeated. Here the trials began.

The gallows was erected close to the jail wall; day by day the doomed ones walked out of a door in the second story to the death platform; and day by day Marsh and the other wretches in the cells heard the drop as it swung, in falling, against the jail wall. Marsh lived in hourly expectation of the summons, but before his turn came there was a stay in the work which had been going on under the warrants signed by Sir George Arthur--as great a tyrant, probably, as ever held power on the American continent. A far more philosophic writer than Robert Marsh has called him the Robespierre of Canada. Whatever may be held as to the illegality of the trials which sent some twenty-five men to the gallows at this time, certain it is that the hangings stopped before our hero's neck was stretched. Fate still had her quiver full of evil days for him; and fortune, like a gleam of sun between clouds, moved him on to the prison at Toronto, where his mother came to see him.

It was in the early spring of 1839 that he was transferred to Toronto.

In June following, with a boatload of companions, he was s.h.i.+pped down to Fort Henry at Kingston. Here, for three months, he was deluded with the constant expectation of release; but he must have had some foreshadowings of his fate when, after three months of wretched existence at Fort Henry, he was again sent on, down the river to Quebec; and there, on September 28, 1839, he and 137 companions in irons were put aboard the British prison-s.h.i.+p Buffalo, commanded by Capt. Wood.

They were stowed on the third deck, below the water line; 140 sailors were placed over them; and the Buffalo took her course down the widening gulf. The dismal departure was lightened by a touch of human nature.

There were several of the convicts who, like Marsh, claimed American citizens.h.i.+p, and American blood will show itself.[49] As the prisoners were marched down with clanking chains from Fort Henry for the s.h.i.+pment to Quebec, many of them thought that it was their last s.h.i.+ft before release. "There were three or four very good singers amongst us," says Marsh, "which made the fort ring with the 'American Star,' 'Hunters of Kentucky' and other similar songs, which caused many to flock to our windows. Some of them remarked, 'You will not feel like singing in Botany Bay.' 'Give us "Botany Bay,"' said one, and it was done in good style."

If the reader will permit the digression, it may afford a little entertainment to consider for a moment these old songs. The literature of every war includes its patriotic songs--seldom the work of great poets, and most popular when they appeal to the quick sympathies and sense of humor of the common people. Every people has such songs, sometimes cherished and sung for generations. England has them without number, Canada has hers, the United States has hers; and among the most popular for many years, strange as it now may seem, were "The American Star" and "The Hunters of Kentucky," which were sung by these none-too-worthy representatives of the United States, through Canadian prison bars, this autumn morning sixty years ago. Both songs had their origin, I believe, at the time of the War of 1812. That such barren and bombastic lines as "The American Star" should have remained popular a quarter of a century seems incredible, and appears to indicate that the youth of the country were very hard up for patriotic songs worth singing. Here follows "The American Star":

Come, strike the bold anthem, the war dogs are howling, Already they eagerly snuff up their prey, The red clouds of war o'er our forests are scowling, Soft peace spreads her wings and flies weeping away; The infants, affrighted, cling close to their mothers, The youths grasp their swords, for the combat prepare, While beauty weeps fathers, and lovers and brothers, Who rush to display the American Star.

Come blow the shrill bugle, the loud drum awaken, The dread rifle seize, let the cannon deep roar; No heart with pale fear, or faint doubtings be shaken, No slave's hostile foot leave a print on our sh.o.r.e.

Shall mothers, wives, daughters and sisters left weeping, Insulted by ruffians, be dragged to despair!

Oh no! from her hills the proud eagle comes sweeping And waves to the brave the American Star.

The spirits of Was.h.i.+ngton, Warren, Montgomery, Look down from the clouds with bright aspect serene; Come, soldiers, a tear and a toast to their memory, Rejoicing they'll see us as they once have been.

To us the high boon by the G.o.ds has been granted, To speed the glad tidings of liberty far; Let millions invade us, we'll meet them undaunted, And vanquish them by the American Star.

Your hands, then, dear comrades, round Liberty's altar, United we swear by the souls of the brave Not one from the strong resolution shall falter, To live independent, or sink to the grave!

Then, freemen, fill up--Lo, the striped banner's flying, The high bird of liberty screams through the air; Beneath her oppression and tyranny dying-- Success to the beaming American Star.

Every one of its turgid and wordy lines bespeaks the struggling infancy of a National literature. "The Hunters of Kentucky" is a little better, because it has humor--though of the primitive backwoods type--in it. If the reader has not heard it lately, perhaps he can stand a little of it.

It was inspired by the battle of New Orleans:

Ye gentlemen and ladies fair, Who grace this famous city, Just listen, if you've time to spare, While I rehea.r.s.e a ditty; And for the opportunity Conceive yourselves quite lucky, For 'tis not often that you see A hunter from Kentucky; O! Kentucky, The hunters of Kentucky.

We are a hardy free-born race, Each man to fear a stranger; Whate'er the game, we join in chase, Despising toil and danger; And if a daring foe annoys, Whate'er his strength or force is, We'll show him that Kentucky boys Are alligators,--horses: O! Kentucky, etc.

I s'pose you've read it in the prints, How Packenham attempted To make Old Hickory Jackson wince, But soon his schemes repented; For we, with rifles ready c.o.c.k'd, Thought such occasion lucky, And soon around the general flock'd The hunters of Kentucky: O! Kentucky, etc.

I s'pose you've heard how New Orleans Is famed for wealth and beauty; There's gals of every hue, it seems, From snowy white to sooty: So, Packenham he made his brags If he in fight was lucky, He'd have their gals and cotton bags, In spite of Old Kentucky: O! Kentucky, etc.

But Jackson he was wide awake, And wasn't scared at trifles, For well he knew what aim we take With our Kentucky rifles; So, he led us down to Cypress Swamp, The ground was low and mucky; There stood John Bull in martial pomp-- But here was Old Kentucky: O! Kentucky, etc.

We raised a bank to hide our b.r.e.a.s.t.s, Not that we thought of dying, But then we always like to rest, Unless the game is flying; Behind it stood our little force-- None wish'd it to be greater, For every man was half a horse And half an alligator: O! Kentucky, etc.

They didn't let our patience tire Before they show'd their faces; We didn't choose to waste our fire, But snugly kept our places; And when so near we saw them wink, We thought it time to stop 'em, It would have done you good, I think, To see Kentuckians drop 'em: O! Kentucky, etc.

They found, at length, 'twas vain to fight, When lead was all their booty, And so, they wisely took to flight, And left us all the beauty.

And now, if danger e'er annoys, Remember what our trade is; Just send for us Kentucky boys, And we'll protect you, ladies: O! Kentucky, etc.

At least it has a gallant ending, which was not altogether apposite to the situation of Marsh and his fellow-prisoners at Kingston. "Botany Bay" was more in their line just then; but, at any rate, it was just as philosophic to go into exile singing as mourning or cursing.

Were I a Herman Melville or a Clark Russell I should be tempted to dwell on this dreary voyage of the prison-s.h.i.+p Buffalo. Even Marsh's humble chronicle of it is graphic with unstudied incidents. They ran into rough weather at once; so that to the wretchedness of their imprisonment was added the misery of seasickness. No one had told them of their destination, and many of them, like Marsh, stoutly maintained from first to last that they were transported without a sentence. Their daily life in this dark and crowded 'tween-decks, practically the hold of a staggering old sailer, could not be detailed without offense; and if it could be, I have no desire to heap up the horrors. In mid-voyage there was an attempted mutiny; the convicts tried to seize the s.h.i.+p; but the only result was heavier irons, closer confinement, and a stricter guard. After two months of the stormy Atlantic the Buffalo put into Rio Janeiro, where she lay three tantalizing days. "It happened to be the Emperor's birthday," says Marsh, "and although we were not allowed to go on sh.o.r.e, we could discover through a skylight the flags on the pinnacles of houses and hills apparently reaching to the clouds." A little fruit was had aboard to allay the scurvy which was making havoc, and the Buffalo lumbered away again and ran straight into a savage gale, in which she sprung a bad leak. She was an old s.h.i.+p, and had formerly been a man-of-war, but for some years now had been employed as a convict transport between England and New South Wales. From Rio around the Cape of Good Hope the log kept by Robert Marsh is a story of sickness and death. Those who had had their limbs frozen in Canada now found the skin and flesh coming away and the sea water on their bare feet gave them excruciating agony. The shotted sack slid into the shark-patrolled waters of the Indian Ocean, and the wretches who still lived were envious of the dead. And on the 13th of February, 1840, four months and a half from Quebec, the Buffalo anch.o.r.ed in Hobart Town harbor, Van Dieman's Land.

And now a word about this antipodean land on which our unlucky hero looked out from the prison-s.h.i.+p. We are wont to regard it, perhaps, as a new and well-nigh unknown part of the world; possibly some of us would have to think twice if asked off-hand, Where is Van Dieman's Land? Of course we remember, when we glance at the map, that it is a good-sized island just south of Australia. From extreme north to extreme south it is about as far as from Buffalo to Philadelphia, and east and west not quite so far as from Buffalo to Albany. And here is a coincidence: Hobart Town, in the harbor of which the prison-s.h.i.+p Buffalo dropped anchor with her load of misery, is exactly as far south of the equator as Buffalo is north of it. Other parallel data may perhaps be helpful: It was in 1642 that the navigator Tasman discovered the island, naming it after his Dutch patron, Van Dieman. The explorer's name has now been subst.i.tuted, as it should be, and Tasmania, not Van Dieman's Land, appears on modern maps. The history of that land dates from 1642. It was in 1641 that those adventurous missioners, Brebeuf and Chaumonot, first carried their portable altar across the Niagara; and from the Relations of their order for that year the world gained the first actual glimpse of the Niagara region. In the world's annals, therefore, this far-away island and our own Niagara and lake region are of the same age. One other parallel may be ventured. The first permanent settlement in Van Dieman's Land was made in 1803. In 1804 Buffalo had fifteen actual settlers and a few squatters. But here our parallels end, for when, on that February morning of 1840, the unhappy Marsh was put ash.o.r.e, he found a community unlike any that has ever existed in this happier part of the world. For over thirty years England had been sending thither her worst criminals. s.h.i.+pload after s.h.i.+pload, year after year, of the most depraved and vicious of mankind, had been sent out. England had made of it and of Botany Bay a dumping-ground for whatever manner of evil men and women she could sc.r.a.pe from her London slums. There was some free colonization, but it went on slowly. Honest men hesitated to go where society was so handicapped. The treatment of the convicts varied according to the Governors, but for years before Marsh arrived it seems to have been as harsh and brutalizing as imperiousness and cruelty could devise. In 1836 Sir John Franklin was sent out to the station. He was an exceptionally humane and generous man, according to most accounts. Marsh does not complain of any severity from him, but calls him an old granny, a glutton and a temporizer in his promises to convicts. It is something foreign to our purpose to dwell upon this point, nor is it a gracious thing to seek any imputation against a character which history delights to hold as the embodiment of the gallant and heroic. We must remember that Robert Marsh's point of view was not likely to bring him to favorable estimates of those in authority over him and through whom his very real oppression came. Years after, when the great explorer's bones lay whitening in the unknown North, this far-away colony raised to his memory a n.o.ble bronze statue, which stands to-day in Franklin Square, Hobart, not far from the old Government House, the scene of his uncongenial administration.

And now behold our hero marched ash.o.r.e with his fellows; reeling like a drunken man, the strange effect of firm earth under foot after months of heaving seaway; examined, ticketed and numbered, clad in Her Majesty's livery, and sent to a near-by country station, where he is put to work under savage overseers at carrying stone for road-building; and thus began five years of unmitigated suffering for Robert Marsh in that detestable land. There were about 43,000 convicts on the island at the time, 25,000 of whom were driven to daily work in chain gangs, on the roads, in the wet mines or the forest. The rest were ex-convicts; had served their sentences and counted themselves among the free population, which all told did not then exceed 60,000. Conceive of a free community, nearly one half of whom, men and women, were former convicts, but not regenerate. For years the brothels of London, Glasgow, Edinburgh, were emptied into Van Dieman's Land. A reputable writer has said that at this time female virtue was unknown in the island. The wealthy land-owners, under government patronage, were autocrats in their own domain. The whipping-post, the triangle--a refinement of cruelty--and the gallows were familiar sights. The slightest failure at his daily task sent the convict to the whipping-post or to solitary confinement.

Official iniquity flourished under Sir George Arthur's reign of eleven years. He was Franklin's predecessor, and his minions were still in control when Marsh came under their power. He was s.h.i.+fted from station to station; fed like a dog, lodged in the meanest huts and worked well nigh to death. The worst characters were his overseers, and the day began with the lash. A convict's strength would give out under his load; he would lag behind, or stop to rest. At once he would be taken to the station, stripped to the waist--if he chanced to have anything on--strung up to the post or triangle, and flogged. As an additional measure of reform, brine was thrown into the gashes which the lash had made. These were the milder forms of daily punishment. Sir George Arthur's prouder record comes from the executions. Travelers to-day tell us that Tasmania is really a second England; in its settled portions it is a land of pleasant vales and gentle rivers, rich in harvests of the temperate zone. "Appleland," some have called it, from its fruitful orchards; but no tree transplanted from Merrie England ever flourished more than the black stock from Tyburn Hill. Sir George hanged 1,500 during his stay. Marsh tells of a compa.s.sionate clergyman who was watching with interest the erection of a gallows. "Yes," he said, "I suppose it will do, but it is not as large as we need. I think ten will hang comfortable, but twelve will be rather crowded."

It is small wonder that our hero tried to escape. He took to the bush--which means the unexplored and inhospitable forest--with a band of friends; was captured, punished, and thereafter dressed in magpie--trousers and frock one half black, one half yellow; and in this garb, which advertised to all that he had been a bush-ranger, he worked on until the spring of 1842, when Sir John Franklin made him a ticket-of-leave man. This relieved him from the overseers, and gave him permission to work, for whatever wages he could get, in an a.s.signed district.

And now again, of this new phase of his misadventures, a long story could be made. At that time the best circ.u.mstanced ticket-of-leave men got about a s.h.i.+lling a day and boarded themselves. But there was little work and many seekers. They roamed over the country, turned away from plantation after plantation, and in many cases became the boldest of outlaws. Escape from the island was well nigh impossible; but after many hards.h.i.+ps, utterly unable to get honest work, Marsh was one of a party that determined to try it. Making their way eighty miles to the seash.o.r.e, they hid in the woods, where for a week or so they gathered firewood, buried potatoes and snared kangaroo. One of their number reached a settlement and returned with the word that an American whaler was coming to take them off. After six days more of waiting the vessel hove in sight. As she tried to draw near and send boats ash.o.r.e a storm came up and she narrowly escaped the breakers. At this critical moment a British armed patrol schooner rounded a point down the coast and the American made her escape with great difficulty, leaving the score of runaway convicts at their precarious lookout, hopeless and despondent.

They were soon arrested, Marsh among them. He was tried for breaking his patrol, and sent to an inland district, 100 miles through the bush and swamps. "It was all punishment," he says pathetically, in describing this journey on which he nearly perished. So down-hearted and distressed were they, so appalled by the war of nature and man against them, that one of Marsh's companions, with f.a.gged-out brain, came to the conclusion that they were really in h.e.l.l and that the devil himself was in charge of them. But there is always a turn to the tide. They trapped a kangaroo and did not starve. Marsh reached his district and this time found work, which had to be light, for he was weak, emaciated and troubled day and night with a pain in his chest. And finally the glad word came that he was gazetted for pardon and could go to Hobart. There, on January 27, 1845, after ten months in Canada prisons, four and a half months in a transport s.h.i.+p, and five years in a convict colony, he went on board the American whaler Steiglitz of Sag Harbor, Selah Young, master, a free man.

The Steiglitz was bound out on a whaling voyage. No matter, she would take Marsh away from that h.e.l.l. She cruised for whale off New Zealand, then made north, and in April anch.o.r.ed off Honolulu. King Hamehameha III., on hearing the story of the convict Americans, welcomed them ash.o.r.e, and there Marsh stayed for four months, exploring the islands and waiting for a chance to get home. At last it came in the welcome shape of the whaler Samuel Robertson, Capt. Warner, bound for New Bedford. She touched at the Society Islands and Pernambuco, and on March 13, 1846, after seven years four and a half months absence, Marsh stepped ash.o.r.e in his own country again. The people of New Bedford helped him and a few others as far as Utica. There one of his comrades in exile left him for his home in Watertown, and others went their several ways. Marsh was helped as far as Canandaigua, where his brother met him and took him to his home in Avon; and after a time of recuperation there, they came on to Buffalo, where he met his father, his mother and sister. He soon crossed the river, visited Toronto, and probably looked over the scenes of his early cracker-peddling and subsequent campaigning, up and down the Niagara. He had traveled 77,000 miles, but here his journey ended; and here the Patriot exile told his story, which I have drawn on in an imperfect way, for this true chronicle of old trails.

Underground Trails.

UNDERGROUND TRAILS.

It was Dame Nature who decreed that the Niagara region should be peculiarly a place of trails. When she set the great cataract midway between two lakes, she thereby ordained that in days to come the Indian should go around the falls, on foot. The Indian trail was a footpath; nothing more. Here it followed the margin of a stream; there, well nigh indiscernable, it crossed a rocky plateau; again, worn deep in yielding loam, it led through thick woods, twisting and turning around trees and boulders, with detours for swamps or bad ground, and long stretches along favorable slopes or sightly ridges. Who can hazard a guess as to the time when, or by what manner of men, these trails were first established in our region? Immemorial in their source--akin in natural origins to the path the deer makes in going to the salt-lick or to drink--they were old, established, when our history begins. And when the white man came he followed the old trails. Traveling like the Indian, by water when he could; when lakes and rivers did not serve, he found the footpaths ready made for him in the forest. Armies came, cutting military roads. Settlers followed to banish forests, drain swamps, and make new highways. And yet the horseman, the military train, the wagon of the pioneer, the early stage-coach, the railroad, each in its day, along many of the most direct and important thoroughfares, has but followed the ancient ways. The thing is axiomatic. Nature for the most part decrees where men shall walk. Her lakes and rivers and her hills may be strewn by whim; but there are plain reasons enough for our road-building. We go where we can, with safety and expedition. So ran the red man. We still follow the old trails.

Other aspects of our frontier are worthy of a thought. Two nations look across the Niagara, so that, even though its flow were placid from lake to lake, it would still be a political barrier, a halting-place. This fact has filled it full of trails in history. Again, as the gateway of the West, the paths of immigration and of commerce for a century have here converged. The early settlers of Michigan and Wisconsin went by the old Lewiston ferry. From Buffalo by boat, and from old Suspension Bridge by rail, who can estimate the thousands who have gone on to create the New West? From the earliest Iroquois raid upon the Neuters, down to yesterday's excursion, the Niagara frontier has been peculiarly a region of pa.s.sing, of coming and going, along old trails.

Now of all the paths that have led hitherward, none has greater significance in American history than that known as the Underground Railroad. Other paths, touching here, have led to war, to wealth, to pleasure; but this led to Liberty. Thousands of negro slaves, gaining after infinite hards.h.i.+ps these sh.o.r.es of the lake or river, have looked across the smiling expanse to such an elysium as only a slave can dream of. Once the pa.s.sage made, no matter how poor the pa.s.senger, freedom became his possession and the heritage of his children. The chattel became a man. I can never sail upon the blue lake, or down the pleasant river, without seeing in fancy this throng of famished, frightened, blindly hopeful blacks, for whom these waters were the gateway to new life. The most vital part of the Underground Railroad was the over-water ferry. Bark canoe and great steamer alike leave no lasting trail; but to him who reads the history of our region, this fair waterway at our door is thronged as a street; and every secret traveler thereby is worthy of his attention. Much has been recorded of these refugees, who came, singly or in small parties, for more than thirty years preceding the Civil War. Indeed, runaway slaves pa.s.sed this way to Canada soon after the War of 1812. The tales of soldiers returning to Kentucky from the Niagara frontier and other campaigns of that war, first planted in the minds of Southern slaves the idea that Canada was a land of freedom. By 1830 many earnest people who disapproved of slavery, the Quakers prominent among them, were giving organized aid to the escaping blacks.

In many secret ways the refugees were pa.s.sed on from one friend to another. Hiding-places were established, and routes which were found advantageous were regularly followed.

It is no part of my present plan to enter upon a general sketch of the Underground Railroad. That task has already been admirably performed, at voluminous length, by careful students. My aim in this paper is to bring together a number of incidents and narratives, particularly ill.u.s.trative of its work at the eastern end of Lake Erie and along the Niagara frontier, in order that the student may the better appreciate how vital this phase of the slavery issue was, even in this region, for more than a generation preceding the Civil War. There were established routes for the pa.s.sage of fugitive slaves: From the seaboard States to the North, by water from Newberne, S. C, and Portsmouth, Va.; or by land routes from Was.h.i.+ngton and Philadelphia, to and through New England and so into Quebec. There was "John Brown's route" through Eastern Kansas and Nebraska; and there were many routes through Iowa and Illinois, most of them leading to Chicago and other Lake Michigan ports, whence the refugees came by boat to Canadian points, chiefly along the north sh.o.r.e of Lake Erie; or even, in some cases, by water to Collingwood on Georgian Bay, where a considerable number of runaway slaves were carried prior to the Civil War. But the travel by these extreme East and West routes was insignificant as compared with the number that came through Western Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana, to points on the south sh.o.r.e of Lake Erie and the Detroit and Niagara rivers at either end. The region bounded by the Ohio, the Allegheny, and the western border of Indiana was a vast plexus of Underground routes. The negroes were taken across to Canada in great numbers from Detroit and other points on that river; from Sandusky to Point Pelee; from Ashtabula to Port Stanley; from Conneaut to Port Burwell; from Erie to Long Point; and from all south-sh.o.r.e points on Lake Erie they were brought by steamer to Buffalo.

Often, the vessel captains would put the refugees ash.o.r.e between Long Point and Buffalo. At other times, the fugitives were sent to stations at Black Rock or Niagara Falls, whence they were soon set across the river and were free. There were some long routes across New York State, the chief one being up the Hudson and Mohawk valleys to Lake Ontario ports. There was some crossing to Kingston, and some from Rochester to Port Dalhousie or Toronto. Another route led from Harrisburg up the Susquehanna to Williamsport, thence to Elmira, and northwesterly, avoiding large towns, to Niagara Falls. But the most active part in the Underground Railroad operations in New York State was borne by the western counties. There were numerous routes through Allegany, Chautauqua and Cattaraugus counties, along which the negroes were helped; all converging at Buffalo or on the Niagara. In the old towns of this section are still many houses and other buildings which are pointed out to the visitor as having been former stations on the Underground.

The Pett.i.t house at Fredonia is a distinguished example.