Part 16

The command of the American forces then devolved upon General Ripley, who took up his position at Fort Erie and was there besieged by Lieutenant-General Drummond. On August 3d, the British directed a savage onslaught against the Fort, but were driven back with loss. They continued, however, to invest the American position. On September 17th, General Porter headed an attack on the besieging force, and such was the gallantry of the American volunteers that the British veterans were dispersed. General Napier, the English military historian, cites this sortie as one of the few in all history that at a single stroke compelled the raising of a siege. The Governor brevetted Porter a major-general, and Congress voted him a gold medal.

With this exploit at Fort Erie, the War of 1812 was practically over, so far as the interests of Buffalo were concerned. When the American troops retired from Fort Erie, they blew it up, and its ruins are one of the picturesque features of the region about Buffalo.

The commercial greatness of the city is indissolubly associated with the Erie Canal. In 1807-8 Jesse Hawley of Geneva wrote a series of articles in the _Ontario Messenger_. In these he advocated the construction of a grand canal connecting Lake Erie with the Atlantic Ocean. This idea found favor with Joseph Ellicott, DeWitt Clinton, Gouverneur Morris, and Peter B. Porter, and so strong did the sentiment for the project become, that in 1816 a bill passed the Assembly, directing that the work of construction be commenced. The Senate, however, decided that additional surveys should be made. The work of preparation was inaugurated July 14, 1817; and on the 9th of August, 1823, the work of actual construction began in Erie County by the breaking of ground for the canal, near the place where is now the Commercial Street bridge in Buffalo. The great waterway was completed on October 25, 1825, and the first boat, _Seneca Chief_, started on its voyage from Buffalo to the Hudson. DeWitt Clinton, then the Governor of the State and chief promoter of the canal, graced the ceremonies with his presence.

[Illustration: MILLARD FILLMORE.]

In this connection, it is interesting to observe that, in 1819, the question whether Buffalo or Black Rock should be the western terminus of the canal was settled in favor of the former through the public spirit and enterprise of Charles Townsend, Samuel Wilkeson, Oliver Forward and George Coit. These men gave each a bond of $8,000 for the purpose of securing a loan of $12,000 from the State to construct a harbor, the State reserving the right to accept or reject, as it pleased, the completed work. From this time on, Judge Wilkeson devoted his immense energies and great executive ability to the interests of Buffalo in connection with the canal, and to him may justly be ascribed the credit of being the founder of her lake commerce. It was altogether appropriate, therefore, that, on the opening of the canal, he should have been given the honor of pouring into the lake the water brought from the ocean, an event described as the Wedding of the Atlantic and Lake Erie. It recalled the marriage in old time of Venice and the Adriatic.

Near where LaSalle, in 1679, built his little sailing vessel, the _Griffin_, three New York capitalists completed on May 28, 1818, the first steamboat that plied the waters of Lake Erie. This was fittingly named, after the Wyandot chieftain, _Walk-in-the-Water_. The little vessel was lost three years later, but it marked the beginning of steam navigation on the Lakes—since grown to such perfection as to rival the navigation of the sea.

The influence of the Erie Canal has been incomparably great, not merely in the rise of one city, but, in a larger sense, in the development of the State and the nation. The commercial forces which it generated have aided in building up the wealth of the Middle West, and the impetus of the resultant enterprise has finally reached every industry of the continent. To the canal, more than to any other factor, Buffalo owes its growth and importance. The little hamlet founded by Joseph Ellicott now has a population of 390,000. The city’s coal receipts in 1898 were 2,455,191 tons; its lumber receipts, 189,075,938 feet; its grain receipts, 267,395,434 bushels. It has a harbor enclosed by a new breakwater nearly four miles in length, and costing over $2,000,000. The coal interests have constructed the greatest trestles in the world. Forty-one elevators, with a capacity of 20,920,000 bushels, line the harbor. There are 3500 manufactories. The park system comprises thousands of acres, with seventeen miles of park driveways. Twenty-six railroads enter the city, with 250 passenger trains daily, and have nearly 700 miles of trackage within the city limits. The electric power from Niagara Falls is delivered at Buffalo in practically unlimited quantities. There are 24 banks, and 184 churches. The city has 116 miles of street paved with stone, 6 miles paved with brick, and 225 miles with asphalt, or more asphalt than any other city in the world, not excepting Paris, Washington, or London. Two public libraries contain more than 180,000 volumes. In handling flour and wheat, Buffalo is the first city in the world. Its fresh-fish industry aggregates an annual distribution of 15,000,000 pounds. Buffalo’s horse market is the most important in the country; and in cattle and hogs, the trade of the city is second only to that of Chicago. The sheep market is the largest in the United States.

[Illustration: BEACON ON OLD BREAKWATER.]

The climate of Buffalo, with the exception of high winds during certain portions of the winter, is probably as delightful as that enjoyed by any city on the globe. In summer, the temperature is nearly always moderate, and when other cities suffer from extreme heat, the people of Buffalo are blessed with the conditions common to late summer in other regions.

The residence portion of the city is celebrated for its beauty. The avenues are wide, the dwellings elegant and commodious, the lawn effects charming, and the trees superb.

[Illustration: DELAWARE AVENUE, SHOWING BISHOP QUIGLEY’S HOUSE.]

Buffalo is entering upon what might be termed its metropolitan period. New forces, new ideas, are building splendid superstructures on the foundations established by the generation now passing away. From the time of the city’s incorporation, in 1832, the bench and the bar, the medical and the clerical professions, have been especially rich with the names of those who have left a lasting impress upon the thought of the city, the state and the nation. The political life and the business progress have been dignified by men of intellect and character. Such names as the Right Reverend Arthur Cleveland Coxe, Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Western New York; the Right Reverend Stephen Vincent Ryan, Roman Catholic Bishop of Buffalo; John Ganson, one of the giants of the legal profession; Millard Fillmore, a former President of the United States; Doctors George N. Burwell and John Cronyn, cultured physicians of the old school; William I. Williams, the pioneer of Buffalo’s unrivalled paved streets; the Reverend Doctor William Shelton, rector of St. Paul’s Church; the Reverend Doctor John Lord, perhaps the most famous of Buffalo’s Presbyterian divines; James M. Smith, Justice of the Supreme Court, recall types of men whose ability, integrity and civic worth would contribute to advance civilization in any community.

[Illustration: DR. JOHN CRONYN.]

[Illustration: WILLIAM I. WILLIAMS.]

During the Civil War, Buffalo did its patriotic share towards the preservation of the Union. The names of William F. Rogers, Michael Wiedrich, James P. McMahon, Daniel D. Bidwell, Edward P. Chapin, John Wilkeson and William Richardson are cherished by the people of Buffalo and Erie County as typical of the soldiers who, in regiment after regiment, enlisted there for the war.

In legislation, also, the city contributed its part to the successful prosecution of the struggle. On December 30, 1861, Mr. E. G. Spaulding, member of Congress from Buffalo, introduced the bill which afterwards became famous as the Legal-Tender Act, whereby the Secretary of the Treasury was authorized to issue $50,000,000 in Treasury notes, payable on demand, in denominations of not less than $5, these to be the legal tender for all debts, public and private, and exchangeable for the bonds of the Government at par.

Nearly every element of American progress has entered into the growth of this beautiful city. Its development has been brilliant in enterprise, luminous in education, rich in romance, splendid in achievement, and noble in patriotism. In a word, Buffalo has kept pace with the Great Republic.

[Illustration: SEAL OF THE CITY OF BUFFALO.]

[Illustration]

PITTSBURGH

THE INDUSTRIAL CITY

BY SAMUEL HARDEN CHURCH

George Washington, the Father of his Country, is equally the Father of Pittsburgh, for he came thither in November, 1753, and established the location of the now imperial city by choosing it as the best place for a fort. Washington was then twenty-one years old. He had by that time written his precocious one hundred and ten maxims of civility and good behavior; had declined to be a midshipman in the British Navy; had made his only sea-voyage to Barbadoes; had surveyed the estates of Lord Fairfax, going for months into the forest without fear of savage Indians or wild beasts, and was now a major of Virginia militia. In pursuance of the claim of Virginia that she owned that part of Pennsylvania in which Pittsburgh is situated, Washington came there as the agent of Governor Dinwiddie to treat with the Indians. With an eye alert for the dangers of the wilderness, and with Christopher Gist beside him, the young Virginian pushed his cautious way to “The Point” of land where the confluence of the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers forms the Ohio. That, he declared, with clear military instinct, was the best site for a fort; and he rejected the promontory two miles below, which the Indians had recommended for that purpose.

[Illustration: AN EARLY RESIDENT OF PITTSBURGH.

(FROM A STATUE BY T. A. MILLS IN THE CARNEGIE MUSEUM.)]

As early as 1728 a daring hunter or trader found the Indians at the head waters of the Ohio,—among them the Delawares, Shawanese, Mohicans and Iroquois,—whither they tracked the bear from their village of Logstown, seventeen miles down the river. They also employed the country roundabout as a highway for their march to battle against other tribes, and against each other. At that time France and England were disputing for the new continent. France, by right of her discovery of the Mississippi, claimed all the lands drained by that river and its tributaries,—a contention which would naturally plant her banner upon the summit of the Alleghany Mountains.[26] England, on the other hand, claimed everything from ocean-shore to ocean-shore. This situation produced war, and Pittsburgh became the strategic key of the great Middle West. The French made early endeavors to win the allegiance of the Indians, and they felt encouraged to press their friendly overtures because they usually came among the red men for trading or exploration, while the English invariably seized and occupied their lands. In 1731 some French settlers did attempt to build a group of houses at Pittsburgh, but the Indians compelled them to go away. The next year the Governor of Pennsylvania summoned two Indian chiefs from Pittsburgh to say why they had been going to see the French Governor at Montreal; and they gave answer that he had sent for them only to express the hope that both English and French traders might meet at Pittsburgh and carry on trade amicably. The Governor of Pennsylvania sought to induce the tribes to draw themselves farther east, where they might be made to feel the hand of authority, but Sassoonan, their chief, forbade them to stir. An Iroquois chief who joined his entreaties to those of the Governor was soon afterward killed by some Shawanese braves, but they were forced to flee into Virginia to escape the vengeance of his tribe.

Louis Celeron, a French officer, made an exploration of the country contiguous to Pittsburgh in 1747, and formally enjoined the Governor of Pennsylvania not to occupy the ground, as France claimed its sovereignty. A year later the Ohio Company was formed, with a charter ceding an immense tract of land for sale and development, including Pittsburgh. This corporation built some storehouses at Logstown to facilitate their trade with the Indians, which were captured by the French, together with skins and commodities valued at £20,000; and the purposes of the Company were never accomplished.

[Illustration: SUN-DIAL USED AT FORT DUQUESNE.]

As soon as Washington’s advice as to the location of the fort was received, Captain William Trent was dispatched to Pittsburgh with a force of soldiers and workmen, packhorses and materials, and he began in all haste to erect a stronghold. The French had already built forts on the northern lakes, and they now sent Captain Contrecœur down the Allegheny with one thousand French, Canadians and Indians, and eighteen pieces of cannon, in a flotilla of sixty bateaux and three hundred canoes. Trent had planted himself in Pittsburgh on February 17, 1754,—a date important because it marks the first permanent white settlement there. But his work had been retarded alike by the small number of his men and the severity of the winter; and when Contrecœur arrived in April, the young subaltern who commanded in Trent’s absence surrendered the unfinished works, and was permitted to march away with his thirty-three men. The French completed the fort and named it Duquesne, in honor of the Governor of Canada; and they held possession of it for four years.

Immediately on the loss of this fort, Virginia sent a force under Washington to retake it. Washington surprised a French detachment near Great Meadows, and killed their commander, Jumonville. When a larger expedition came against him, he put up a stockade near the site of Uniontown, naming it Fort Necessity, which he was compelled to yield on terms of marching away with the honors of war.

The next year (1755) General Edward Braddock came over with two regiments of British soldiers, and, after augmenting his force with Colonial troops and a few Indians, began his fatal march upon Fort Duquesne. Braddock’s testy disposition, his consuming egotism, his contempt for the Colonial soldiers and his stubborn adherence to military maxims that were inapplicable to the warfare of the wilderness alienated the respect and confidence of the American contingent, robbed him of an easy victory and cost him his life. Benjamin Franklin had warned him against the imminent risk of Indian ambuscades, but he had contemptuously replied: “These savages may indeed be a formidable enemy to your raw American militia; but upon the King’s regular and disciplined troops, sir, it is impossible they should make any impression.” Some of his English staff-officers urged him to send the rangers in advance and to deploy his Indians as scouts, but he rejected their prudent suggestions with a sneer. On July 9th his army, comprising twenty-two hundred soldiers and one hundred and fifty Indians, was marching down the south bank of the Monongahela. The variant color and fashion of the expedition,—the red-coated regulars, the blue-coated Americans, the naval detachment, the rangers in deerskin shirts and leggings, the savages half-naked and befeathered, the glint of sword and gun in the hot daylight, the long wagon train, the lumbering cannon, the drove of bullocks, the royal banner and the Colonial gonfalon,—the pomp and puissance of it all composed a spectacle of martial splendor unseen in that country before. On the right was the tranquil river, and on the left the trackless wilderness whence the startled deer sprang away into a deeper solitude. At noon the expedition crossed the river and pressed on toward Fort Duquesne, ten miles below, expectant of victory. What need to send out scouts when the King’s troops are here? Let young George Washington and the rest urge it all they may; the thing is beneath the dignity of his Majesty’s General.

But here, when they have crossed, is a level plain, elevated but a few feet above the surface of the river, extending nearly half a mile landwards, and then gradually ascending into thickly wooded hills, with Fort Duquesne beyond. The troops in front had crossed the plain and plunged into the road through the forest for a hundred feet, when a heavy discharge of musketry and arrows was poured upon them, which wrought in them a consternation all the greater because they could see no foe anywhere. They shot at random, but without effect, while the hidden enemy kept up an incessant and destructive fire. In this distressing situation their courage forsook them, and they fell back into the plain. Braddock rode in among them, and he and his officers persistently endeavored to rally them, but without success. The Colonial troops adopted the Indian method, and each man fought for himself behind a tree. This was forbidden by Braddock, who attempted to form his men in platoons and columns, making their slaughter inevitable. The French and Indians, concealed in the ravines and behind trees, kept up a cruel and deadly fire, until the British soldiers lost all presence of mind and began to shoot each other and their own officers, and hundreds were thus slain. The Virginia companies charged gallantly up a hill with a loss of but three men, but when they reached the summit the British soldiery, mistaking them for the enemy, fired upon them, killing fifty out of eighty men. The Colonial troops then resumed the Indian fashion of fighting from behind trees, which provoked Braddock, who had had five horses killed under him in three hours, to storm at them and strike them with his sword. At this moment he was fatally wounded, and many of his men now fled away from the hopeless action. Washington had had two horses killed and received three bullets through his coat. Being the only mounted officer who was not disabled, he drew up the troops still on the field, directed their retreat, maintaining himself at the rear with great coolness and courage, and brought away his wounded general. Sixty-four British and American officers, and nearly one thousand privates, were killed or wounded in this battle, while the total French and Indian loss was not over sixty. A few prisoners captured by the Indians were brought to Pittsburgh and burnt at the stake. Four days after the fight Braddock died, exclaiming to the last, “Who would have thought it!”

[Illustration: THE EARL OF CHATHAM.

FROM AN OIL PAINTING IN THE POSSESSION OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA.]

Despondency seized the English settlers after Braddock’s defeat. But two years afterward William Pitt became Prime Minister, and he thrilled the nation with his appeal to protect the Colonies against France and the savages. His letters inspired the Americans with new hope, and he promised to send them British troops and to supply their own militia with arms, ammunition, tents and provisions at the King’s charge. He sent twelve thousand soldiers from England, which were joined to a Colonial force aggregating fifty thousand men,—the most formidable army yet seen in the new world. The plan of campaign embraced three expeditions: the first against Louisburg, in the island of Cape Breton, which was successful; the second against Ticonderoga, which succeeded after a defeat; and the third against Fort Duquesne. General Forbes commanded this expedition, comprising about seven thousand men. The militia from Virginia, North Carolina and Maryland was led by Washington. On September 12, 1758, Major Grant, a Highlander, led an advance-guard of 850 men to a point two miles from the fort, which is still called Grant’s Hill, where he rashly permitted himself to be surrounded and attacked by the French and Indians, half his force being killed or wounded, and himself slain. Washington followed soon after, and opened a road for the advance of the main body under Forbes. Fort Frontenac, on Lake Ontario, had just been taken by General Amherst, with the result that supplies for Fort Duquesne were cut off. When, therefore, the French commandant learned of the advance of a superior force, having no hope of reinforcements, he blew up the fort, set fire to the adjacent buildings and drew his garrison away.

[Illustration: BLOCKHOUSE OF FORT PITT. BUILT IN 1764.]

On Saturday, November 25, 1758, the English took possession of the place, and on the next day General Forbes wrote to Governor Denny from “Fort Duquesne, now Pittsburgh, the 26th of November, 1758,” and this was the first use of that name. On this same Sunday the Rev. Mr. Beatty, a Presbyterian chaplain, preached a sermon in thanksgiving for the superiority of British arms,—the first Protestant service in Pittsburgh. The French had had a Roman Catholic chaplain, Father Baron, during their occupancy.

The English proceeded to build a new fort about two hundred yards from the site of Fort Duquesne, which they called Fort Pitt. This stronghold at Pittsburgh cut off French transportation to the Mississippi by way of the Ohio River, and the only remaining route, by way of the Great Lakes, was soon afterward closed by the fall of Fort Niagara. The fall of Quebec, with the death of the two opposing Generals, Montcalm and Wolfe, and the capture of Montreal, ended the claims of France to sovereignty in the new world.

The new fort being found too small, General Stanwix built a second Fort Pitt, much larger and stronger, designed for a garrison of one thousand men. The Indians viewed the newcomers with suspicion, but Colonel Henry Bouquet assured them, with diplomatic tergiversation, that, “We have not come here to take possession of your country in a hostile manner, as the French did when they came among you, but to open a large and extensive trade with you and all other nations of Indians to the westward.” A redoubt (the “Block-House”) built by Colonel Bouquet in 1764 still stands, in a very good state of preservation, being cared for by the Daughters of the American Revolution. The protection of the garrison naturally attracted a few traders, merchants and pioneers to Pittsburgh, and a permanent population began to grow.

But the indigenous race continued to resent the extension of white encroachment; and they formed a secret confederacy under Pontiac, the renowned Ottawa chief, who planned a simultaneous attack on all the white frontier posts. This uprising was attended by atrocious cruelties at many of the points attacked, but we may take note here of the movement only as it affected Pittsburgh. At the grand council held by the tribes, a bundle of sticks had been given to every tribe, each bundle containing as many sticks as there were days intervening before the deadly assault should begin. One stick was to be drawn from the bundle every day until but one remained, which was to signal the outbreak for that day. This was the best calendar the barbarian could devise. At Pittsburgh, a Delaware squaw who was friendly to the whites had stealthily taken out three of the sticks, thus precipitating the attack on Fort Pitt three days in advance of the time appointed.

[Illustration: PLAN OF FORT PITT.]

The last stick was reached on June 22, 1763, and the Delawares and Shawanese began the assault in the afternoon, under Simon Ecuyer. The people of Pittsburgh took shelter in the fort, and held out while waiting for reinforcements. Colonel Bouquet hurried forward a force of five hundred men, but they were intercepted at Bushy Run, where a bloody battle was fought. Bouquet had fifty men killed and sixty wounded, but inflicted a much greater loss on his savage foes, and gained the fort, relieving the siege. As soon as Bouquet could recruit his command, he moved down the Ohio, attacked the Indians, liberated some of their prisoners and taught the red men to respect the power that controlled at Pittsburgh.