Volume 2 — DESCRIPTION OF FORT OSWEGO, &c

The preparations for general Shirley’s expedition against Niagara, were not only deficient, but shamefully slow; though it was well known that even the possibility of his success must, in a great measure, depend upon his setting out early in the year, as will appear to any person who considers the situation of our fort at Oswego, this being the only way by which he could proceed to Niagara. Oswego lies on the south-east side of the lake Ontario, near three hundred miles almost due west from Albany in New York. The way to it from thence, though long and tedious, is the more convenient, as the far greatest part of it admits of water carriage, by what the inhabitants called batteaux, which are a kind of light flat-bottomed boats, widest in the middle, and pointed at each end, of about fifteen hundred weight burden, and managed by two men called batteau-men, with paddles and setting poles, the rivers being in many places too narrow to admit of oars. From Albany to the village of Schenactady, about sixteen miles, is a good waggon road. From thence to the little falls in the Mohawk-river, being sixty-five miles, the passage is by water-carriage up that river, and consequently against the stream, which in many places is somewhat rapid, and in others so shallow, that, when the river is low, the watermen are obliged to get out and draw their batteaux over the rifts. At the little falls is a postage or land-carriage for about a mile, over a ground so marshy that it will not bear any wheel carriage; but a colony of Germans settled there, attend with sledges, on which they draw the loaded batteaux to the next place of embarkation upon the same river. From thence they proceed by water up that river for fifty miles, to the Carrying-place, near the head of it, where there is another postage, the length of which depends upon the dryness or wetness of the season, but is generally above six or eight miles over in the summer months. Here the batteaux are again carried upon sledges, till they come to a narrow river, called Wood’s Creek, down which they are wafted on a gentle stream for about forty miles into the lake Oneyada, which stretches from east to west about thirty miles, and is passed with great ease and safety in calm weather. At the western end of the lake is the river Onondaga, which, after a course of between twenty and thirty miles, unites with the river Cayuga, or Seneca, and their united streams run into the lake Ontario, at the place where Oswego fort is situated. But this river is so rapid as to be sometimes dangerous, besides its being full of rifts and rocks; and about twelve miles on this side of Oswego there is a fall of eleven feet perpendicular, where there is consequently a postage, which however, does not exceed forty yards. From thence the passage is easy quite to Oswego. The lake Ontario, on which this fort stands, is near two hundred and eighty leagues in circumference; its figure is oval, and its depth runs from twenty to twenty-five fathoms. On the north side of it are several little gulfs. There is a communication between this lake and that of the Hurons by the river Tanasuate, from whence it is a land-carriage of six or eight leagues to the river Toronto, which falls into it. The French have two forts of consequence on this lake; Frontenac, which commands the river St. Lawrence, where the lake communicates with it; and Niagara, which commands the communication between the lake Ontario and the lake Erie. But of these forts, and this last lake, which is one of the finest in the world, we shall have occasion to speak hereafter.

Though we had long been in possession of fort Oswego, and though it lay greatly exposed to the French, particularly to those of Canada, upon any rupture between the two nations, we had never taken care to render it tolerably defensible, or even to build a single vessel fit for navigating the lake: nor was this strange neglect ever taken effectual notice of, till the beginning of this year, when, at a meeting which general Braddock had in April with the governors and chief gentlemen of several of our colonies at Alexandria, in Virginia, it was resolved to strengthen both the fort and garrison at Oswego, and to build some large vessels at that place. Accordingly a number of shipwrights and workmen were sent thither in May and June. At the same time captain Bradstreet marched thither with two companies of an hundred men each, to reinforce the hundred that were there before under captain King, to which number the garrison had been increased since our contests with France began to grow serious. For a long time before, not above twenty-five men were left to defend this post, which from its great importance, and the situation of affairs at this juncture, most certainly required a much stronger garrison than was put into it even at this juncture; but economy was the chief thing consulted in the beginning of this war, and to that in a great measure was owing its long duration.