The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1873-09-04
THE IRON INTEREST OF NORTH
EuN NEW YORK.
The Por, Henry waxks.
No. I,
EARLY HISTORY.


of our country. Previously to tho year of
1881 the waters of Lake Champloin and
the shores which hem them in, were known
to none but savage tribes and constituted
sort Of neutral ground between the Iroquois
and their allies, who comprised the Six
Nations. and the st. Lawrence Tribes,
This middle ground was probably
bloody field, and the fact that the first
white man who ever navigatcd these waters
Samuel De Champlain--was at the time
with war party, may be taken az an indi-
cation Of the scenes of blood which had
been enacted here in those remote prchis-
toric times over which hover the dim msts
of tradition, so thickly as to render the
task of distinguishing facts from tsncies
exceedingly difficult.
II will be rccollectcd that the party of
St. Lawrence Indians, with whom and un.
der whose protection Champlain was ira
yelling, encountered a horde of hostile Iro-
quois ION the Goth Of the month of July,
1909, about ten o'clock at night, at point
OF a cape which juts into the lake on the
west side" We are aware that modern his
torians have located the scene of the first
battle in which the warriors of the power
full Six Nation were made to feel the ST.
pcrior prowcss of their white foes at Ticon-
deroSa, and that upon Champlain's map, it
is marked as being between Lake George
and Crown Point, but that description
point OF cape etc, corresponds so cx-
actly to the appearance of Crown Point
that one finds ii hard to get il out Of his
mind that right across Bulwagga Bay
looking from the beautiful village of Port
Hcnry-upon Crown Point-whcre the re-
mains of the first fort built on the lake are
still plainly visible was the very spot,
where Champlain marched ashore with his
Indian allies, his 0rguebus loaded as he no.
tipely states with four balls, and killed
three chiefs at the very first shot
That was probably the first explosion of
gunpowdcr the Iroquois had ever heard and
it must have impressed most effectually
upon the one hundred and eight-seven sur
vivors the superiority of civilization over
barbarism.
But whether this was the scene of that
| conflict or not, we know thvt about the
yer 1871 at which early period both the
French and English were striving to gain
footholds in advance of each other in the
new world, and especially upon Lake
(hamp1ain tho ;p,norto,co nc ,,,L;oh 70 4.
evident was seen from the first, from the
name given it ''Caniadcre guarantc" /. z.
The lake that is the gate of the country.
The French evidently claimed possession
by the right of discovery, and in 1887
Beauharnis was ordered to commence the
erection of a fort upon Crown Point. This
fort was completed in 1850 and was named
st. Frederick.
| During the imbroglio which followed
between the French and the English col.
onists in Massachusetts, Vermont and New
York, men by the name of Alexander
Mckenzie was taken prisoner by the
French and indians. and brought to this
fort.
| This is Il family tradition among the de-
scendants of Mckenzie, but history informs
lis that on the twenty-ninth of October,
1765-fiftcen years later-the same Alex
ander Mckenzie, Sergeant in the FOrtieth
regiment, received from grateful State,
for his military services, two patents, one
OF one hundred acres, and another of fifty.
This land was located in what is now the
town OF Morial, just sonth of the suburb
of Port Henry known as Cedar Point.
Here he settled after serving his country
faithfully, and in 1856 his wife presented
him with son, the first white child born
within the presents limits of the town of
Moriah. This son, Alexander Mckenzie,
is yet living and he rccollects with great
distinctncss many incidents of that early
time. The shores of Bulwagga Bay, and
slopes of the mountain above, which bears
the same name, was then a great re-
sort for Indian hunters, and in passing in
and out of the bay, they would usually
call at McKcnzie's cabin. Both moose
and deer abounded here in abun-
dance. Upon one occasion an In
dian had left his birch bark canoe in
charge of Mrs. McKenzic-while he went
upon hunting trip around the shores of
the bay-her husband being absent-and
soon afterwards another Indian came
along and was about to take the canoe,
when the intrepid woman ordered him TO
desist. The Indian, enraged, brandished
his tomahawk about her head, but she
finched not, and finally carried her point,
and the Indian skunk away into the forest.
This same woman once padded canoe
upon the urgent demand of some stern ne
cessity, all the way from her house to st.
Johns, Canada, over hundred miles, and
back.
The same cabin which Mckenzie built,
or portion of it is standing yet at Cedar
| Point. near the new furnace.
On the fifth of July, 1866, the same year
that the patent was conveyed TO McKen-
ze, another was granted to one Benjamin
Porter, sergeant in the 9th regiment, for
two hundred acres, where the village of
Port Henry now stands, and at the
same time two hundred acres more were
conveyed TO Joseph Franklin, also ser
geant in the 27th regiment, lying
between the Mckenzie and Porter tract.
These three men then were the original
owners of this valuable water front
! destined to become perhaps the most valu-
able one of the same extent m Essex
county.
Benjamin Porter taking 200 acres, the
northern boundary of which was probably
the hill which rises abruptly directly north
of the Cheeyer Furnace, and including the
site of the village of Port Henry, Joseph
Franklin the next 200 acres south, embrac-
ing Cedar Point, and Alexander Mckenzie
the next one hundred and fifty acres south
of that We believe there is no record of
Porter or Franklin having occupied their
farms for any considerable length of time
but Mckenzie made of his tract home,
and his example constitutes one of the rare
instances in which one of the original
grantees actually occupied the lands which
had been conveyed to them by the State,
and handed them down to their descend
ants Could these men revisit these scenes
now after a lapse of little over century,
how would they be astonished at the trans
formation which has taken place