The Catholic Church in the Niagara Peninsula, 1626-1895

Front matter

from

the estate of

J. Stuart Fleming

Preface

I CAN offer no other apology for the publication of the present work than the desire to rescue from oblivion, if not destruction, the valuable records, traditions and manuscripts touching the Catholic history of the Niagara peninsula. In a few years all of the early pioneers will have disappeared, and with them, if they had not been personally interviewed, much that was caught from their lips and committed to these pages. When I first ventured to treat of the early history of this section of our province, I did not realize the serious nature of the contract I had entered upon. The nearest reference library was in Toronto, and I owe it to the good-will and kindness of Mr. Bain, the courteous librarian, that I was able to complete the first five chapters and continue my researches. Again, owing to a pressure of parochial work and frequent interruptions, I could only devote an occasional hour to the task ; and it is not without serious misgivings I venture to publish this contribution to the Catholic history of Ontario.

I regard myself as singularly fortunate in being able to collect, from various sources, no inconsiderable amount of materials which have hitherto had no

Preface.

place in history, and which in a few years would have been entirely lost. In gathering the fragments for this volume I have received valuable assistance and encouragement from 0. A. Howland, Esq., M.P.P., Toronto ; Mr. Frank H. Severance, the historical writer and editor of the Buffalo Sunday Express, whose impartiality and honesty in matters affecting the early history of the Catholic Church in Western New York have won for him the respect and gratitude of his Catholic readers ; and General John A. Clark, of Auburn, N.Y., whom I regard as the best living authority on Indian topography. I also acknowledge myself deeply indebted to Mr. David Boyle, the archaeologist, without whose invaluable aid Chapter V., treating on the archaeology of the Neutrals, could not have been written.

It is scarcely necessary for me to add that this volume required in its compilation patient collection and research, and that over five hundred letters were addressed to various parties for information before it could be satisfactorily completed. I offer it as a contribution to the Catholic literature of our country, with the expression of the hope that abler pens than mine will soon he enlisted in this great and meritorious work.

St. Catharines,

Chapter I. The Mound Builders And Copper Workers

Indian Burial Mound — Relics of a Forgotten People — Primitive Man — The Mound Builders — Mounds of Ohio — Prehistoric Skill — Copper Axes and Spear Heads — Giant Skeletons — The Mysterious Copper Plate — Ancient Mines of Lake Superior — The Copper Workers — Their Tools and Implements — The Great Ontonagon Copper Block — Mysterious Records — Fate of the Mound Builders 9-24

Chapter II. A Forgotten People

The Attiwandarons — Champlain and Sagard — Chaumonot’s Map — Origin of the Neutrals — Their Dress and Habitations — Knowledge of Surgery — Their Sweat Bath — Their Physical Development — Sorcerers and Witches — Hospitality of the Neutrals — Burial Customs — The War Dance — Nation of Fire — Fasting — Harangue of a Neutral Chief — On the WTar Path — Attack of , the Mascoutins — Fate of Prisoners — The Torture — War With the Iroquois — Slaughter and Ruin — Flight of the Neutrals — Destruction of the Tribe — Savage Ferocity — Superstitions. ... 25-42

Chapter III. A Valiant Priest

The Missionaries —A Daring Franciscan — The Huron Flotilla —

Outward Bound — Forest Scenery — On the Ottawa — The Portage — De la Roche Daillon — Enters the Priesthood — Opposition of Friends — Leaves for New France — WTth

Contents

the Hurons — Goes to the Neutrals — The Neutral Chief — The Council — Hospitably Entertained — Huron Liars — From Friendship to Hatred — Alarming Threats — Returns to Huronia — Description of Niagara Peninsula in 1626 — Daillon Sails for France — Death of the Franciscan

CHAPTER IY.

THE JESUITS AND THE NEUTRALS.

Chapter I

of a once brave and populous nation lay hidden in this huge grave, whose silent eloquence, stronger than words, told the melancholy story of a vanished people. In a hundred more years, in all probability, all — save a few imperishable stone tomahawks — that the earth contains of the great nation of Attiwandarons will have entirely disappeared, returning to its parent dust. Archaeologists and students of prehistoric times almost unanimously agree that before the occupation of this continent by the American Indian, another race of men more populous and civilized possessed the land. The great mounds of the Mississippi Yalley, Indiana, Northern Ohio and Wisconsin, the carved pipes, the copper and iron weapons, and delicately wrought ornaments found in these mounds, the fortifications constructed on geometric lines indicating a knowledge of mensuration and engineering, point to an order of civilization much in advance of that of the Indian of history. These mounds and fortifications tell us that long prior to the obliterated forests and the Indians who roamed through them, there existed another people gifted with many of the characteristics belonging to nations of civilized tendencies. “ Before the Indian hunter wandered there or the great river valleys were overshadowed with their ancient forests, nations dwelt in those valleys practising arts and rites which involve many germs of civilization.” (Wilson’s “ Prehistoric Man,” p. 259.) This ancient people constructed levees to hold in check and utilize the waters.

in the Niagara Peninsula.

of the Wabash and Mississippi for the purposes of agriculture and irrigation. The number of mounds left by them surpasses belief. More than ten thousand tumuli and a thousand enclosures have been found in the State of Ohio alone.

After a careful study of these works it is impossible to resist the conviction that the builders possessed considerable knowledge of the science of defence. Their number and magnitude, and the regular lines on which they were constructed, lead up to the conclusion that the builders were a very numerous and powerful people.

The great mound of Cahokia, a truncated pyramid between East St. Louis and Alton, is ninety feet in height, while its squared sides are 700 and 500 feet, respectively. On the south side of this mound was a terrace 150 x 300 feet, approached' by a graded way. Its flattened summit was 200 x 450 feet, and in its construction marvellous ingenuity must have been used. This mound could not have been built without a knowledge of the regular scales of measurement and instruments for determining the angles, squares and circles. Furthermore, if the tablet which was found in a mound in Iowa be genuine, and many good authorities claim it to be so, then the Mound Builders must have possessed an alphabet or held intercourse with a people who did.* They also, it would appear, possessed an accurate system of weights, for from the

* “North Americans of Antiquity,” p. 38.

arms of a skeleton found in one of their tumuli were taken bracelets of copper of uniform size, weighing precisely four ounces.

Again, take their defensive earthworks, the most extensive of which is probably that at Fort Hill, Ohio. 'This stronghold is on the summit of a hill five hundred feet above the bed of the river which flows by its sloping defences. The wall measures more than a mile and a half in length and encloses an area of forty- eight acres in extent, covered a few years ago with gigantic trees. One of them measured twenty-one feet and another twenty-three feet in circumference.

Lyell, in his u Travels in North America,” writes that eight hundred concentric circles were counted in one of the trees near this mound, and he is of the opinion that more than a thousand years have passed away since these works were constructed.

The authors of the “ Ancient Mounds of the Mississippi Valley,” who, acting under instructions of the United States Government, made very accurate and elaborate surveys, tell us that the earthworks of this prehistoric people are not only accurate squares and perfect circles, but are, in many cases, of corresponding dimensions, each square being 1,080 feet a side, and the diameter of each of the larger and smaller circles a fraction over 1,700 and 800 feet. They add that this correspondence could not be the result of an accident, but goes to prove that these ancient people possessed a standard of measurement, means of deterin the Niagara Peninsula.

mining angles, instruments, and a knowledge of their use. The most advanced Indian tribes since the discovery of America showed no such intellectual development as that possessed by these people.

“ The most skilful engineer of our own day,” writes the author of “Prehistoric Man, ” “ would find it difficult , without the aid of instruments, to lay down an accurate square on the scale of some of those described, enclosing an area four-fifths of a mile in circumference.” Circles of moderate dimensions might indeed be constructed, so long as it was possible to describe them by a radius, but with such works measuring 5,400 feet or upwards of a mile in circumference, these ancient geometricians must have had instruments and minute means of measuring arcs, for it seems impossible to conceive of the accurate construction of figures on such a scale, otherwise than by finding the angle by its area, from station to station, through the whole course of their delineation. It is no less obvious from the correspondence in area and relative proportions of so many of the regular enlosures, that the Mound Builders possessed a recognized standard of measurement, and that some peculiar significance, possibly of an astronomical origin, was attached to figures of certain forms and dimensions. That they possesse a crude knowledge of military engineering is evident from the remains of their fortifications, walls and ditches. How, for example, shall we account for the existence of their graded ways like unto that at Piketown, Ohio?

Here an avenue had been excavated leading up to a considerable height, terrace after terrace, and having a length of 80 feet and a width of 215. From earth taken from this approach, high embankments were constructed on each side of the ascent, which a few years ago were covered with trees of an enormous size. Further on earthworks were thrown up which, in their construction, point to a knowledge of defensive engineering.

“ Clark’s works” on the north fork of Point Creek, in the Scioto Valley, embraces in its main defences and uniform rectangular outworks an area of 127 acres. Here the bed of the river was changed to allow the builders freedom to carry out the original design and to admit of the completed circuit of the walls. When, in 1842, excavations were made in these works, valuable remains of ancient art were brought to light, including fragments of carved ivory, many pieces of sculpture, coiled serpents chiselled out of stone and overlaid with sheet mica and copper. Mr. Squier remarks that the amount of labor expended in the construction of this work was immense. The embankment measures three miles r ength, and a careful computation shows that, including mounds, not less than three million cubic feet of earth were used in its construction.

On the Little Miami River, Ohio, is a work having a circuit of four or five miles, an embankment twenty feet high and an enclosed area that would give protecin the Niagara Peninsula.

tion to sixty thousand men. The great mound of Miamisburg is 68 feet high and 852 feet in circumference, while the Grave Creek Mound of Virginia is seventy-feet high, and would require a chain one thousand feet to girdle its base.

THE GREAT MOUND, NEAR MIAMISBURG, OHIO.

“We have seen mounds,” writes the American Topographer Flint, “ which would require the labor of a thousand men employed on our canals with all their mechanical aids and the improved implements of their labor for months.

“We have more than once hesitated in view of one of these prodigious mounds, whether it were not really a natural hill. But they are uniformly so placed, in reference to the adjacent country, and their conformation is so unique and similar that no eye hesitates long in referring them to the class of artificial erections.”

To this day there are traces of military fortifications left by this ancient people through Central New York, Northern Ohio, and extending into Indiana to the hanks of the Wabash. This prehistoric race made adobe , or sun-dried brick, mixed with rushes. They wrought in copper, silver and lead, and there are evidences that they even understood the smelting of iron. Copper axes, bosses for ornaments, spear heads, bracelets and rings, with strange characters marked upon them, have been recovered from their mounds.

At Marietta, Ohio, on the Muskingum Eiver, a mound was opened in 1869, and, among other articles uncovered, were large circular ornaments for a sword belt, composed of copper, overlaid with a thick plating of silver. Two or three pieces of copper tubing were also found, filled with iron rust and copper rivets or nails.

Mr. Squier says : “ These articles have been critically examined, and it is beyond doubt that the copper bosses were absolutely plated, not simply overlaid , with silver. Between the copper and the silver exists a connection such as, it seems to me, could only be produced by heat, and if it is admitted that these are genuine relics of the Mound Builders, it must, at the same time, be admitted that they possessed the difficult art of plating one metal upon another. . There is but one alternative, viz.: That they had occasional in the Niagara Peninsula.

and constant intercourse with a people advanced in the arts, from whom these articles wTere obtained. Again, if Dr. Hildreth is not mistaken, oxidized iron or steel was also discovered in connection with the above remains, from which also follows the extraordinary conclusion that the Mound Builders were acquainted with the use of iron, the conclusion being, of course, subject to the improbable alternative already mentioned.”

From these mounds have been taken squares of matting delicately woven, pieces of double and twisted fibre cloth, mouthpieces and stops for wind instruments, and quaintly and curiously wrought lovers' flutes,* reminding one of Bryant’s lines :

“ Till twilight came and lovers walked and wooed In a forgotten language ; and old tunes From instruments of unremembered forms Gave the soft winds a voice.”

They plated stone with copper, possessed various mechanical contrivances, were acquainted with the lathe, knew the use of the mould, and excelled in carving.

There is a conflict of opinion among writers on these ancient people as to how far this forgotten race penetrated westward. Mr. Fontaine wrote that the Mound Builders never inhabited either the New England States nor the State of New York. Mr. Squier who,

* The “ flute ” is used principally by the young man whose fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love, — A C. Fletcher, on “ Omaha Indian Songs,” p. 425.

for a long time held the opposite opinion, acknowledges that the force of evidence compelled him to alter his conviction that traces of the Mound Builders were evident in the lands of Western New York. Mr. Squier says : “ In full view of the facts, I am driven to a conclusion little anticipated when I started upon my trip of exploration, that the earthworks of Western New York were erected by the Iroquois or other western neighbors, and do not possess an antiquity going very far back of the discovery of the country.” Sir Daniel Wilson agrees with Mr. Squier, and writes : “ These large earthworks and mounds, essentially dissimilar from the slight structures of the modern Indian, appear to stretch from the upper waters of the Ohio to the westward of Lake Erie, and thence along Lake Michigan nearly to the copper regions of Lake Superior.”

DeWitt Clinton, in his “ Memoir on the Antiquity of the Western Part of New York,” holds the opposite opinion. He writes : “ Previous to the occupation of this country by the progenitors of the present race of Indians, it was inhabited by a race of men much more populous and much further advanced in civilization. I have seen several of their fortifications in the western part of this State. There is a large one in the town of Onondaga, one in Pompeii, and one in Malens ; in a word, they are scattered all over the country.” From the Niagara River to the Genesee there is a line of these fortifications, and a considerable number of in the Niagara Peninsula.

burial mounds, of whose history the Iroquois had no knowledge. Eleven miles east of the present village of Lewiston, on a farm formerly occupied by John Gould, was found a huge ossuary and the remains of an ancient fortification, called by the Tuscarora Indians “Kienka.” Nearly in the middle of this fort was a burial mound. When the earth was removed, flags of sandstone were uncovered, and beneath them was a huge pit filled with human bones of both sexes and of all ages. In the position of the skeletons there was none of the signs of ordinary Indian burial. Remains of earthenware, pieces of copper, and instruments of rude workmanship were ploughed up within the area. The ancient works at Eonthill, in Western New York, discovered forty years ago, show a knowledge of defence upon the part of the builders, surpassing that possessed by the American Indian. The skeletons foutid within the fortified enclosure were those of a race of men one-third larger than the Iroquois or Huron. The giant forest trees that grew upon these works were over five hundred years old, and there were traces that another growth existed before them.

In 1856, Dr. Reynolds, of Brockville, found at the head of the Galops Rapids on the River St. Lawrence, about fifteen feet below the surface, twenty skeletons. “ Some of the skeletons,” he wrote, “ were of gigantic proportion. The lower jaw of one is sufficiently large to surround the corresponding bone of an adult of our generation.”

About one and a half miles west of Shelby, in Orleans County, N.Y., is a mound from which were taken skeletons of a giant size, pieces of pottery and earthenware, covered with patterns in relief, wrought with great skill. “ This was doubtless a spot,” writes the Hon. S. M. Burroughs, “ where a great battle had been fought. Were not these people a branch of the Aztecs ? ”*

In the year 1809, in one of these ancient fortifications, on the middle branch of Buffalo Creek, three and a half miles from the village of Aurora, was ploughed up a copper plate, twelve inches broad and sixteen inches long. Upon it were engraved characters extending its whole length, which have not yet been deciphered. That its mysterious import will ever be known is scarcely to be expected. The language of the race, like the race itself, is unknown. Like the Palenque hieroglyphics, or those on the walls of the Temple of Philo, at the first cataract of the Nile, it has defied the ingenuity of scholars, and awaits tho birth of an American Champollion or a Grotesfeud to unveil its secrets.

In 1847, prospectors of the Minnesota Mining Company discovered an abandoned mine, in which were found ladders, masses of broken rock, tools and implements, proving that the mine had been opened and worked by a race of men who knew the value of copper for decorative, ornamental and other purposes.

* “North Americans of Antiquity, N.Y., 1851.”

in the Niagara Peninsula.

The American Indian, before the coming of the Trench, knew nothing of copper, iron, or any other metal than stone. These ancient copper workers had opened mines for over a hundred miles along the southern shore of Lake Superior and on Isle Boyale centuries before the Algonquin was driven northward. “ At a locality,” writes Sir Daniel Wilson, “ lying to the east of Keweena Point, in the rich iron district of Marquette, in what appears to have been the ancient bed of the Biver Carp, and about ten feet above the present level of the channel, various implements and weapons of copper were found. Large trees grow on this deposit also, and the evidences of antiquity seemed not less obvious than in that of Ontonagon. The relics included knives, spear or lance heads, and arrow heads, some of which were ornamented with silver. One of the knives made, with its handle, out of a single piece of copper, measured altogether about seven inches long, of which the blade was nearly two-thirds of the entire length, and of oval shape.”

The great Ontonagon block of pure copper found in the Minnesota mine, near Ontonagon Biver, and now in the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, weighs over six tons, and showed when found numerous marks of the tools of these ancient people. The miners had sunk a trench twenty-six feet deep, detached the copper block from its matrix, and raised it on to a platform eight feet high, which was preserved by the water in which it was standing. The mining tools and implements which were found near its mouth seemed to imply that the miners left the diggings in confusion, and pointed to a sudden attack or a devastating pestilence, like that which nearly exterminated the New England Indians before the landing of the pilgrims. If these people were not of a gigantic size, endowed with a corresponding strength, how was it possible for them to lift this enormous mass of copper into its cradle without machinery ? Again, what use did they make of the great quantity of copper taken from the storm-beaten and castellated shores of Lake Superior ? They left behind them adzes similar in shape to our own, with bevelled edges, tempered drills, and gravures of copper, the use of which was not even known to the Algonquin.

This mysterious race has left no other records behind it than those found in their mines, fortifications and mounds, and as to what manner of people they were, or where they came from, historians are unable to agree.

“Yet all these were, when no man did them know,

Yet have from wisest ages hidden been ;

And later times things more unknown shall show,

Why then should witless man so much mis ween That nothing is but that which he hath seen ?”

— Faerie Queen.

Caleb Atiwater, in his “ Archseologia Americana,” is of the opinion that they were of Asiatic origin, but admits that this is only a supposition, and Morgan (Peab. Eept. XII., p. 552) holds that they cannot be classed with any known Indian stock. It would appear in the Niagara Peninsula.

that this ancient people never crossed into or dwelt on the Niagara Peninsula, for no traces of them have ever been discovered in any part of the land. The Attiwandarons of the Huron-Iroquois stock, or a kindred tribe, were in all probability the first and only race of men that ever occupied the Peninsula before the advent of the European, and save a few flint arrow heads and stone axes recovered at times from their burial mounds, there remains nothing to remind us that even they ever lived. From Niagara to Detroit there is not a stream or river bearing their name, and all that is left of their language are the words preserved in Brebeuf’s dictionary. Fifty years after their destruction by the Iroquois, over their corn fields and clearings, over their very graves, there sprang up a luxuriant growth of vine, wood and timber, that obliterated all traces of the slaughtered nation. The earth alone in kindness preserves their memory, and to the student of archaeology occasionally delivers up the relics which, for two hundred and fifty years, it has sacredly preserved from decay. Longfellow, in his embodiment of the Algonquin legends, represents Hiawatha lamenting the decay and death of all things, and that great men and their achievements perish and are forgotten.

‘‘Great men die and are forgotten.

Wise men speak ; their words of wisdom

Perish in the ears that hear them ;

Do not reach the generations

That as yet unborn are waiting In the great mysterious darkness Of the speechless day that shall be.”

And so the Attiwandarons, the wind-dried and sunscorched hunters of the Peninsula, await the speechless Day of Judgment when all things shall be made known.

in the Niagara Peninsula.

CHAPTER II. A forgotten people

The Attiwandarons — Champlain and Sagard — Chaumonot’s Map — Origin of

the Neutrals — Their Dress and Habitations — Knowledge of Surgery -

Their Sweat Bath — Their Physical Development — Sorcerers andi Witches — Hospitality of the Neutrals — Burial Customs — The War Dance — Nation of Fire — Fasting — Harangue of a Neutral Chief — On the War Path — Attack of the Mascoutins — Fate of Prisoners — The- Torture — War With the Iroquois — Slaughter and Ruin — Flight of the Neutrals — Destruction of the Tribe — Savage Ferocity — Superstitions.

“ A warrior race, but they are gone,

With their old forests, wide and deep, And we have built our homes upon Fields where their generations sleep. Their rivers slake our thirst at noon, Upon their fields our harvest waves ; Our lovers woo beneath their moon —

Ah, let us spare, at least, their graves. ”

T the time that the Jesuit Fathers had established their missions among the Hurons, in 1626, the desolation of forest stretching from their frontier town to the Niagara river and beyond was occupied by one of the most powerful and ferocious tribes of the great Canadian wilderness. To their Indian countrymen at a distance the members of this tribe were known as the Attiwandarons, but from the

— Bryant.

fact that in the continuous wars between the Iroquois and Hurons they took no part, they were called by the French, Neutrals.

As they roamed the forests which covered the land now tilled by us, and were those with whom are associated all the Indian legends and romances woven into the history of Niagara Falls and River, they will ever have a melancholy interest for the immediate dwellers on both sides of the mighty cataract. The historians of our country and of the Indian tribes have only incidentally noticed them. Champlain and Sagard refer to them as a people in their time unvisited by any white man. Father de la Roche Daillon, in 1626, fearlessly plunged into their gloomy forests and passed a trying winter with the tribe, leaving an interesting description of their habits and morals. In 1640 Fathers Brebeuf and Chaumonot — the one to perish nine years after in the fires of the Mohawk and the other to outlive all his companions on the mission — also spent a winter among them, enduring suffering and disappointment so great as to almost stagger faith A Father Chaumonot, on his return to the shores of Lake Huron, wrote a graphic description of the people, including a valuable narrative of his experience among them. Brebeuf also wrote the only dictionary of the Neutral language ever compiled.

*For a more extended notice of the Neutrals and the visit of Brebeuf and Chaumonot, see the writer’s “History of the Early Missions of Western Canada.”

in the Niagara Peninsula.

Chaumonot drew a map of the country, which seems to have been lost. This map no doubt was the model for Sanson’s chart of 1656 and Ducreux’s Latin map of 1660. On Sanson’s map the Neutral towns are marked as St. Francis (north-east of Sarnia), St. Michael (east of Sandwich), St. Joseph (County of Kent), and Notre Dame des Anges (on west bank of Grand Kiver, between Brantford and Whiteman’s Creek*). Only Chaumonot or Brebeuf could have named and sited these towns, which proves that Sanson and Ducreux copied Chaumonot’s map.

This tribe was of the parent stock of the Huron- Iroquois, speaking a Huron dialect and wedded to many of their superstitions and customs. In summer the men went naked. They tattooed their bodies with powdered charcoal and vermilion, and painted on their faces images of beasts, birds, reptiles and fishes. In winter they clothed themselves with skins of bears and other animals, wore moccasins of curried hide, often ornamented with porcupine quills wrought into various shapes and forms. The women were decently clothed, except that in summer they went with bare breasts and naked arms, wearing necklaces of wampum and bead-worked ornaments. The Neutrals lived in bark cabins, with a fire in the centre and an opening in the roof for the smoke to escape. One or two deer or bear skins sewed together served for a door. Here every night during the winter months whole families,

* Letter of General 1. A. Clarke.

almost stifled with smoke, huddled together, suffering at times the pinchings of hunger and the alternations of heat and cold.

They possessed a rude knowledge of surgery, and utilized herbs, sassafras roots, and barks of certain trees for medicinal purposes. If in the depths of the forest a Neutral broke his leg or arm, splints of softest material were at once improvised. Branches of uniform length and thickness were cut, which were lined with down-like moss or soft material gathered in a neighboring marsh. If the accident occurred in winter, cedar or hemlock shavings interlaid with fine twigs were used for padding, and, if near a marsh or cedar swale, wild hay was gathered and a cushion made for the wounded limb. Withes of willow osier or young birch bound the splints to the limb. The patient was then placed upon a stretcher of four young saplings, interwoven with cordings of basswood, and carried to his lodge. Here the splints were taken off, the bone examined and reset by some member skilled in bone-setting, and the patient made as comfortable as circumstances permitted. Fractured bones soon united, for the recuperative power of the Neutrals, like that of cognate tribes, was remarkable. The reparative power of the Neutral when injured was only equalled by the stoicism with which he bore the agony of pain and the torture of their rude surgery. They amputated limbs with stone knives, checking the hemorrhages with heated stones, as was the in the Niagara Peninsula.