BeeLines - July 20, 2017
By Marybelle Beigh, Westfield Town & Village Historian
WNY’s First “Fourth of July” in 1754…Part V Tag to Portage Road – French/Indian War
This story was unearthed, while rummaging through the archived files at the Patterson Library a few years ago, looking for information about the building and use of the Portage Road for an earlier BeeLines series on this topic.
A June 1954 edition of the Buffalo Evening News, ran the story, bylined by Merle G. Sheffield, along with an interesting map of unknown source, called “Region of the French Occupation 1754” with the cutline, “When WNY was Part of New France.” Sheffield began his story, “Two centuries ago, the world’s greatest colonial empires collided in a struggle for control of the strategic Ohio Valley… exactly 200 years ago this Sunday—22 years before the Declaration of Independence—this collision resulted in Western New York’s first observance of the Fourth of July as a day of celebration.”
So, what was the occasion for this celebration? According Sheffield, it “was a temporary victory by the soldiers of New France over British troops from Virginia, led by a young lieutenant colonel named George Washington, in the early stages of the French and Indian War.” He goes on to comment that little remains to remind us of that period, as the roads and wooden forts have disappeared. At the time of Sheffield’s story, “Only the stonework Castle and outbuildings of Ft. Niagara are left.”
Apparently, Sheffield had researched the various diaries and manuscripts that have been used in the current BeeLines articles, for his article quotes much of the same information. However, his sources inform us of more details regarding “the story of July 4, 1754, when Frenchmen watched Washington’s defeated troops file out of Ft. Necessity with drums rolling and colors flying.”
After discussing the history of the French and English intents, plans, and activities regarding the waterways of the Great Lakes, St Lawrence River, Atlantic Coastal waters, and interior waterways of the Mississippi watershed to the Gulf, and the two nations’ “wooing the Indian trade,” Sheffield describes the 1749 Bienville expedition. “To get to the Ohio, de Bienville chose the route used ten years before by a French expedition against the Chickasaw Indians in Louisiana” that “employed the Chautauqua portage from Lake Erie to Chautauqua Lake, then down the Chadakoin River, Conewango Creek and into the Allegheny at Warren, Pa.”
According to Sheffield, “In his efforts to forestall the English advance, the captain made inflammatory speeches to the Indians and buried lead plates inscribed with the French claim to the land…[but]…It soon became evident that de Bienville’s activities had been fruitless… the English traders were pushing farther up the Allegheny with no apparent opposition from the Indians.”
Sheffield next brings up the 1753 French expedition “intent upon fortifying the route to the Ohio. It stopped first at the Lake Erie end of the Chautauqua portage, but decided against building a fort there because of the lack of landing facilities for the boats.” The choosing of “Erie’s fine harbor” and building the Presque Isle fort, and Ft. Le Boeuf at Waterford notes that those two forts “were strong log structures, mounted with light cannon… Soon afterward, a scouting party seized an English trading post at Venango where French Creek flows into the Allegheny, and the French doubtless would have built another fort there but for the death by illness of their commander, Marin.”
It is interesting that some of Sheffield’s details are different, and give a different perspective on what happened next. For example, After the death of Marin, “The second-in-command, Monsieur Pean, decided against wintering a large force in the new forts and pulled out for Canada in October, leaving a small garrison at each of the forts and a few men at Venango.”
Sheffield continues with what next sounds quite similar to the previous stories in BeeLines, but with a slight twist of words. “On his way north, Pean stopped at the mouth of Chautauqua Creek and spent a few days improving the old road to Chautauqua Lake, on the theory that if one route to the Ohio was essential, two would be even better.”
The next part of Sheffield’s story has not been told in any previously researched articles used in recent BeeLines. To be continued in Part VI of the Portage Road-French/Indian War WNY’s First “Fourth of July” in 1754 BeeLines series.