THE OHIO VALLEY-GREAT LAKES ETHNOHISTORY
ARCHIVES: THE MIAMI COLLECTION
It is noted that the following work from the Miami Archives should be read and
considered within the historical context in which it was composed and printed.
The opinions expressed and the language used do not reflect the opinions or
standards of the Glenn A. Black Laboratory of Archaeology, but are, rather,
indicative of thought in that historical moment during which the document was
published.
The Expedition of
Baron de Longueuil
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In: Stevens, Sylvester K. and Donald H. Kent, eds. The Expedition of Baron de Longueuil, ((2nd & rev. ed. for the Erie County Historical Society Pennsylvania Historical Commission, Harrisburg, 1941) De Lery's Map of this Exped. is in Karpinski Collection: Project has photostat of), pp. 2-8. |
Note: Except for the addition here of page 8 this document is the same as that of Docket 317, Dft. Ex. 156.
The expedition of Baron de Longueuil was part of an extensive operation known as the Chickasaw campaign. The Chickasaw Indians in northern Mississippi had long been hostile to the French. In their section they occupied much the same position relative to the French and English as did the Iroquois Indians in New York State. English traders in the Chickasaw country did not fail to stir up these Indians against the French of Louisiana. Because of their geographic position, the hostility of the Chickasaw endangered the communication between Louisiana and Canada. Their war parties frequently attacked convoys of traders and soldiers traveling on the Mississippi, and even threatened the outlying settlements of the New Orleans colony. For a decade, attempts were made to pacify or subdue this hostile tribe, with little success. Now, in the year 1739, a detailed campaign was planned.
To crush the hostile tribe, troops brought from France were to advance northward from New Orleans, while other detachments would come from Canada by way of the Mississippi to join them. From Michilimackinac, a force of French and Indians would descend the Mississippi by way of the Chicago portage. On the way, a party from Fort Chartres in the Illinois country would meet them. From the heart of French Canada, Baron de Longueuil's force would travel by way of Lake Ste. Croix (as Governor de Beauharnois called Lake Chautauqua), to join the other expeditions at the rendezvous. This point of junction for the far-flung operations was Fort Assumption, on the Mississippi River, near the present site of Memphis.
The Marquis de Beauharnois, governor of Canada since 1726, thus arranged a concerted plan of campaign with M. de Bienville, governor of Louisiana. To show the greatest possible cooperation, no doubt, he appointed the Baron de Longueuil, a nephew of the Louisiana governor, to command the expedition from Montreal.
Charles Le Moyne, the second Baron de Longueuil, was a member of an empire-building family. His father, the first Baron, campaigned with La Barre and Denonville, and died lieutenant governor of Montreal in 1729. His father's brothers, named for other estates-- Iberville, Saint Hlne, Srigny, Maricourt, Bienville, and Chateauguay-- were also notable in American history, none more so than Jean Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, the great governor of Louisiana. The second Baron was born in 1687, and was, therefore, fifty-two years of age at the time of the expedition. Like his father, he became lieutenant governor of Montreal, and was for a time acting governor of Canada after the death of Governor La Jonquiere in 1752.
The expedition had a total strength of 442 men, which included French soldiers, Canadian militia, and an Indian contingent of 319 warriors. Its composition is shown in detail in the roster, (page 3) which names the officers and cadets, and lists the number of the expedition's other members.
The roster names many individuals who later played important roles in the striking events of the region's later history. Legardeur de St. Pierre, the famous explorer of the Far West, commanded at Fort Le Boeuf in 1753, when Washington brought a summons from Virginia's governor. Three other commanders of the later forts are here: Portneuf, Benoist, Ligneris. Sieur de Ligneris was the commander who abandoned Fort Duquesne in 1758, and who tried fruitlessly to relieve the beleaguered Fort Niagara in 1759. Sieur de Villiers forced Washington to surrender Fort Necessity in 1754. Two of the Joncaires appear on the roster, and one of them accompanied Celoron's expedition ten years later. Legardeur de Repentigny was one of the officers with Marin in 1753. The roster is, in a sense, a dramatis personae for the events of the two decades to follow.
Of all the names on the roster, the name of an eighteen-year-old boy is especially worthy of notice. Joseph-Gaspard Chaussegros de Lery, son of the chief engineer of New France, made the survey and reckonings for the map which was the most important outcome of the expedition. He was commissioned assistant engineer in Canada, on January 1, 1739. His father's letter to the minister gives an interesting account of the way he got permission to join the expedition.
The force was gathered and equipped at Montreal in the last week of May and the first two weeks of June, 1739. Father Lauson, head of the Jesuit missions in Canada, helped effectively by persuading the Sault St. Louis Indians to join the expedition. Most reluctant were the forty-five habitants, Canadian provincials, for "it was necessary to use authority to make them march." The expedition set off up the St. Lawrence River between the 16th and 30th of June. The indefiniteness of the date probably means that the departure was by detachments, which united on the way.
In bateaux and canoes, they followed the south shore of Lake Ontario as the shortest route, which brought them so near to Fort Oswego that they lost some of their Indian allies to the lure of English whiskey. Making the portage at Niagara, they reached Lake Erie by August 4, and proceeded by water to the mouth of Chautauqua Creek, below present-day Westfield, New York.
Here they made the portage to Lake Chautauqua. It seems that two routes or trails may have been used, for two portage trails are shown on the 1740 map, one slightly to the east of the one used by the French at a later time. In 1754, Chaussegros de Lery came again to Lake Chautauqua, and showed, on a sketch in his journal, (page 4) the spot where the 1739 expedition had camped at the head of the lake. This is shown on Map I.
Another portage probably had to be made at the shallows of the Chautauqua outlet, before they reached Conewango Creek. At the present site of Warren, they entered the Allegheny, which to them was the Ohio or Beautiful River. Probably a halt was made at Paille Coupe or Brokenstraw, the Indian village on the site of Irvine; this offered a convenient spot for a council with the Indians to enlist for their support. It would certainly not have been difficult for the French to get Iroquois help, for the Chickasaw Indians had long been at war with the Six Nations. From Celoron's journal of 1749, it is known that they halted at Chiningu or Logstown, and again at the Scioto, where the Shawnee Indians gave them a friendly reception and furnished reinforcements. Ten years later, Celoron found reason to reproach them for less friendly conduct toward his party.
Big Bone Lick on the south bank of the Ohio, in the present state of Kentucky, was the next point visited. The 1740 map of De Lery and Mandeville bears the following note at this place:
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Endroit o yl a Ett trouv Les Eaux [Os] de plusieurs Elephans pard L arme de Cannada Command pard Mr. Le Baron de Longuille et o il a fait mettre Les Armes du Roy en 1739. (Place where the bones of many elephants were found by the army from Canada commanded by the Baron de Longuille, and where he had the Arms of the King set up in 1739.) |
This is the first surviving record of an official taking possession of the Ohio River, in the form made familiar by Celoron in 1749. It is possible that La Salle may have laid similar claim in 1669, if the story of his descent of the Ohio is true; or that French traders or Indian agents may have done so. However, no definite record of an earlier claim has survived. It may also be the first mention of the valuable relics of prehistoric times to be found at this spot.
The expedition reached Fort Assumption successfully, but its military results are of no great consequence, and may be dismissed in a few words. The French had no striking successes. The Indians were overawed by the presence of the large forces just as long as they were in the region, and no longer. The outstanding achievement of the campaign was in the field of geography. It produced the first reasonably accurate map of the Ohio River.
The title of the 1740 map (Map II) may be freely translated as follows:
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Detailed Map of a part of the Beautiful River and of the Route taken by the Canadian Detachment from Niagara Falls to the River St. Louis (the Mississippi), in order to go to Fort Assumption. Surveyed by compass and dead reckoning by Sieur de Lery, the younger; and drawn by Sieur de Mandeville in 1740. |
There are many more details and names than can be shown on the small reproduction. The original map was in one piece, while the reproduction is divided into an eastern and western half. The title was on a scroll in the upper part of the map.
The map was based on a compass survey. Directions were determined by the compass, but distances were estimated by the time required to journey from one point to another. Some information was doubtless obtained from the Indians and from the French traders and Indian agents who had been in the Allegheny valley as early as 1724. From these De Lery may have learned details about the upper courses of streams and about other natural features, which the expedition did not visit.
Lake Le Boeuf, Le Boeuf Creek, French Creek, and the junction of French Creek with Le Boeuf Creek, are shown unmistakably on this map for the first time. This portion of the map is so definite that De Lery either must have explored the region, or had very precise descriptions from others. It is an odd fact that the first natural features of Erie County to appear on maps were the interior waterways, and not the bay and peninsula of Presque Isle. The 1740 map shows Lake Chautauqua (Hiatackoun), the Chautauqua portages, Conewango Creek (Kanavangon), the village at Brokenstraw (Gachinantiagon), and two villages on French Creek. Its notice of Big Bone Lick has been mentioned. Most important of all, it was the first map to give a reasonably adequate representation of the course of the Ohio. It shows the bends of the river, thus improving on earlier maps which show it as a straight line.
Later cartographers were debtors to De Lery for information about the Ohio valley. The great French mapmaker, Jacques Nicolas Bellin, wrote in regard to his "Carte de l'Amrique Septentrionale, Comprise entre le 28e et le 72e degr de Latitude," Paris, 1755; "I owe the topographical detail of the course of that River to M. de Lry, Engineer, who surveyed it with the compass when he descended it with a detachment of French troops in 1729" (sic!). Bellin's map of 1744 made note of the "Place where elephant bones were found in 1729."
These citations, with similar notes on other maps of the period, have led some to draw the conclusion that there was another (page 7) expedition in 1729. They suppose that the elder De Lery, chief engineer of Canada, led an expedition down the Ohio in 1729. He had mapped the Great Lakes in 1725, and had designed and built Fort Niagara in 1726, both of which undertakings brought him near the Ohio region. However, the Governor's letters to the Minister of the Marine in Paris made no mention of the 1729 expedition, nor did De Lery's letters of that year allude to it, though he reported in detail about the management and production of a slate quarry, and about the fortifications of Quebec. His and the Governor's earlier letters gave minute details about the building of Fort Niagara, and the letters about the 1739 expedition should certainly have had a 1729 counterpart if the expedition had actually taken place. A major official of Canada would not go off on an expedition into the wilderness without informing his superiors both before the event and after it. He would have to justify the expenditure of money and time, would have to assure the Minister that the move would not stir up the Iroquois, and, moreover, would wish to gain credit and recognition for the accomplishment.
The most likely hypothesis, however, is that the De Lery-Mandeville map of 1740 was actually the source for Bellin's notes on his maps of 1744 and 1755, and for similar references on other maps of the period, and that Bellin made a mistake or-- what amounts to the same thing-- had an incorrect copy of the 1740 map. Looking at that map as it exists today, it is not difficult to see how a mistake could occur. In the notice of Big Bone Lick, quoted on a previous page, the figure "3" in "1739" is very much blurred, and could easily be mistaken for a "2" without close examination.* If this hypothesis is true, a typographical error has created an expedition. On that small point would hang the truth or falsity of De Lery's expedition of 1729, which has no other definite evidence to support it. What a lesson for draftsmen and copyists on the need for absolute accuracy and legibility!
It is not far-fetched to assume that Bellin used data from the 1740 map for his maps of 1744, 1745, and 1755, as did other cartographers of the time, either directly or copying from Bellin. Father Bonnecamps, the geographer of Celoron's expedition, made little if any improvement over the De Lery-Mandeville map, even though Bonnecamps made observations of latitude.
The expedition of 1739 thus belongs more to the young engineer Chaussegros de Lery than to the soldier Baron de Longueuil, for De Lery made it memorable. The geographic information which he obtained provided the foundation for the later complete cartographic knowledge of the Ohio valley.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
We owe much gratitude to Mr. M. H. Deardorff for his criticism and suggestions, after the publication of the first edition. He is, of course, not to blame for our conclusions.
Many of the details for this sketch were taken from the Report of the Library of Congress (1937), page 131-137, where there is a discussion of De Lery's map. It gives many other sources for the De Longueuil expedition, but its argument against the 1729 expedition is weakened by its casual dismissal of the elder De Lery as a possible leader.
A copy of the map was obtained from the photostatic collections of the Cleveland Public Library. The sketch of the head of Lake Chautauqua is from the Journal of Chaussegros de Lery, 1754-55 (Pennsylvania Historical Commission, Harrisburg, 1940), translated by this project from the French version in Rapport de l'archiviste de la Province du Quebec pour 1928-1929. The Public Archives of Canada contributed a transcript of the roster. The other documents were transcribed by the project from the photostatic collections of the Library of Congress, which should be thanked especially for its constant and invaluable cooperation. All were translated by the project.
The following works were also consulted:
C. B. Galbreath, Expedition of Celoron to the Ohio Country in 1749 (Columbus, 1921).- includes the journals of Celoron and Father Bonnecamps.
Charles A. Hanna, The Wilderness Trail (New York, 1911).
Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly, Vol. 17- a portrait of De Lery on page 365.
Pennsylvania Historical Commission, Wilderness Chronicles of Northwestern Pennsylvania (Harrisburg, 1941) pages 2, 12-18, 20, 21.- has photographic reproduction of eastern half of De Lery's map opposite page 12.
John Earle Reynolds, In French Creek Valley (Meadville, 1938), page 20.- has reproduction of portion of eastern half of De Lery's map on page 18.
Frank Severance, An Old Frontier of France (New York, 1917).
Justin Winsor, The Mississippi Basin (Boston, 1898), pages 187-192.
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* The Survey's draftsman in redrawing the map made this very mistake, thus providing experimental evidence of this hypothesis.
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