AT the time our history opens
(July, 1609), America had been discovered but a hundred
and seventeen years. It was seventy-five years
since Cartier had sailed up the great river St.
Lawrence, but it was only six since Champlain had
planted a permanent colony on its shores; and it was but
three years since the colonists of Jamestown had founded
the first settlement in the United States. It was
not till two months later that Henry Hudson,
with his crew of Dutch and English, sailed up the river
which still perpetuates his memory, and, as is generally
but incorrectly supposed, became the pioneer discoverer
of the Empire State; and it was eleven years later ere
the Pilgrim Fathers landed on the rock-bound coast of
Plymouth.
As it is the territory now forming the county of
Washington which is to be the theme of our story, a
brief delineation of its boundaries and description of
its surface will aid in giving the necessary
distinctness and individuality to the subject,
especially during the long period between the first
appearance of the white man and the formation of the
actual county of Washington.
The district under consideration extends from latitude
forty-two degrees and fifty-four minutes north to
latitude forty-three degrees and forty-seven minutes,—a
distance of no less than sixty-one miles. It lies
between longitude three degrees and ten minutes and
longitude three degrees and twenty-one minutes east from
Washington, its width for forty miles from its southern
boundary being almost exactly eighteen miles. The
remainder of the county diminishes northward from nine
to four miles in width. The area of the whole is
eight hundred and thirty square miles.
The narrow northern section just mentioned, comprising
the present towns of Putnam and Dresden, is composed
mostly of a high rocky ridge, bordered on the east by a
long, narrow stretch of water and marsh, now called the
southern part of Lake Champlain, and on the west by Lake
George, that sparkling, island-gemmed, mountain-bound
sheet of water, the beauty of which is renowned
throughout the continent. The mountain range which
occupies the peninsula—and of which the highest peak
(Black mountain) is two thousand eight hundred and
seventy-eight feet above tide-water—is separated from
the rest of the county by a remarkable depression,
through most of which Wood creek runs, and which extends
southwesterly from the head of Lake Champlain to the
banks of the Hudson, at Fort Edward, forming a natural
pathway for the armies which successively marched to the
north and the south on their missions of invasion.
Where this depression spreads out into the broad plain
around Fort Edward and Sandy Hill, the Hudson comes
rippling down from its source in the Adirondack wilds,
turns something more than a right angle, and runs thence
nearly due south along all the rest of the western
border of the county. East of this are no less
than three ranges of hills, all running northeast and
southwest, with parallel valleys between. The
first consists of the highlands of the present towns of
Easton, Greenwich, Argyle, Hartford, Granville, Hampton,
and the eastern part of Whitehall. Through this
breaks the Batten Kill; its branches, the White creek
and Black creek, dividing the first from the second
ridge. The latter constitutes the high ground of
Cambridge, west Jackson, and the eastern part of Salem
and Hebron. This again is separated by the Owl
Kill from the third range, only a small part of which is
in Washington county, where it occupies the eastern part
of the towns of White Creek and Jackson. Poultney and
Pawlet rivers, flowing from the highlands of Vermont
into Lake Champlain, drain the northeastern part of the
county, and the Hoosic, on its way to the Hudson, forms
a part of its southern boundary.
All these ridges and valleys were at the beginning of
our history covered with a heavy growth of oak, ash,
elm, beech, maple, and other common American trees,
while occasional groves of lofty pine shaded some of the
streams with their evergreen verdure. Here, the
deer, the bear, the wolf, and the panther all had their
lairs, while the deadly rattlesnake coiled among the
rocks beneath, and the screaming eagle soared high in
air over lake and river, vale and mountain peak.
The geology and natural history of the county will be
treated in separate chapters, by a gentleman especially
qualified for the task, and we do not desire to trench
upon his province. We merely wish to give a rough
idea of the territory where we are, in imagination, to
dwell for two hundred and seventy years.
That territory was undoubtedly, in 1609, under the
control of the easternmost tribe of the Iroquois,
the fierce and restless Mohawks. They never
have had a permanent residence there since the country
became known to the white man, and there is no reason to
suppose they ever had. They may have employed it
as a hunting-ground, or they may, as in later years,
have abandoned it to the use of their tributaries, the
Mohicans of western Massachusetts.
Such was the situation in 1609. Of the
prehistoric age little need be said, for nothing is
known, and there is hardly any ground even for
reasonable inference. Dim tradition asserts that
the Iroquois were driven out of the[Page 13]
territory now called Canada by the Hurons; that
they located in central New York, and by means of their
peculiar federation became stronger than their
conquerors, with whom they waged ceaseless war.
The only certainty is that when Champlain came to
Canada, in 1603, he found a bitter feud in existence
between the Hurons and their southern rivals, and
was informed that such had been the case as far back as
Indian knowledge ran. Doubtless the
glades and hillsides of Washington county had many a
time and oft resounded with the fierce war-whoop of
Huron and Mohawk, and its soil was stained
with the blood of these savage foemen, as they met on
the great natural war-path which is the subject of our
history. But they
left no memorial of their deeds, and we turn without
regret from the shadowy domain of tradition to the
historic pathway beginning in 1609, at first dim, but
gradually growing plainer and broader as it is
successively trodden by hunters, soldiers, pioneers,
farmers, mechanics, merchants, by busy citizens of all
classes and occupations, and sweeps onward down to this
year of grace, eighteen hundred and seventy eight.
- END OF CHAPTER III -
< CLICK
HERE to RETURN to TABLE of CONTENTS > |
