The Waterbury Democrat., 1934-08-16

Canada was the SCralCS or no canoe, could pass unless the consent. Even as it was the come the greatest menace in t
 William Pitt recited these facts in the British parliament when he described Old Fort Niagara as, second to the citadel in Quebec, the most important post in Amer ica "which must be taken at any cost" Orders were soon issued for General John Prideau to storm Fort Niagara. Early in July, 1759' with 2,200 regulars, he moved by water out of Fort StanwM, now Rome, N. T., by way of Fort Os- wego, being joined between by more than 900 Iroquois warriors under Sir William Johnson, Brit fish commissioner of Indian affairs.
 Captain Francios Pouchot, the engineer who had made real fort ress of the "stone house" at Old Fort Niagara, was still in com mand there. His garrison consist ed of 496 soldiers and S9 civilians of whom five were women or chill dren. General Prideau landed four miles to the east of the fort on July 9th and when his demand upon Pouchot for surrender was refused, dug entrenchments and laid siege.
 Relief for Pouchot, in the form of 1,400 French soldiers and 1n- dians. was approaching from the south and west. His directions that they proceed along the west side of the Niagara were ignored an das they marched boldly from the Falls down the east side, the British and Indians fell upon them near the present village of 9oungs- town. The battle of La Belle Famille was brief and decisive. The French scattered in every di- rection, many were captured, more were scalped. On July 25 Pouchot was forced to surrender and the French key to the west came into British hands.
 Premature explosion of a small mortar during the siege had killed General Prideau and Johnson be- came the first British commander of Fort Niagara. Under him it grew more important that ever be- fore as base of military, political and commercial conquest. Johnson was at once soldier, diplomat and jurist and the sphere of his influ- ence spread far and wide. While he spent much of his time at Johnstown, N. Y, it was from Fort Niagara that he dominated the h. dians and ruled half of America.
 Johnson made heavy inroads into the profitable fur trade pre- viously enjoyed by the French. Pontiac, their mid-western Indian ally, conspired to retake Fort Mi 'agara and although he never sue ceeded, Senecas under his inflI- ence waylaid British wagon train laboring over the portage road Johnson had built and in the Devils Hole Massacre of 176S reaped a fearful toll of blood and scalps.
 Of the retaliation which this savagry might bring from the iron willed Sir William the Senecas must have been gravely fearful. for in April. 1764, they sent 400 men to sue for peace. Sir William took full advantage of the opportunity thus presented and obtained for his government from the Indians deed to a strip of land two miles back from either shore of the Mi agara river from Lake Ontario to Lake Erie, that strip which has since been known as the Niagara Frontier. To ratify this compact lie summoned the chieftains of ev- cry tribe from Nova Scotia to the Mississippi and in July 2,060 of them gathered at Fort Niagara to conclude permanent peace with Sir William and the British.
 Fort Niagara was the base of extensive British and Indian activ- ities against the Colonies in the Revolutionary war which ensued. Colonel John Butler and his Rang CTS; Guy Johnson, Sir Williams nephew; Joseph Brant and his sis ter. Molly, consort of Sir William. are names looming large in a long record of atrocities committed up- on the colonists. Some records es- tablish that the various command 'ers of Fort Niagara protested to their home offices this use of un- controllable savages against the little protected frontier homes and posts of the embattled Yankees.
 It was at Fort Niagara that the infamous British-Indian expedi- tions to Cherry Valley and Wy oming Valley were conceived. It was from Fort Niagara that many other such war parties stole forth to pillage and burn, capture and kill. And 1t was back to Fort Ni- agara, already over-crowded with garrison, Indians and refugees, that they returned with prisoners, men, women and children, or with, the scalps of those fallen in surprise attack or before an ambuscade laid beside shadowed forest trail. Old Fort Niagara was the heart of the woodland campaign.
 To discourage these recurrent depredations, General Washington sent Generals John Sullivan and James Clinton through New York state, engaging the Indians at ev- cry opportunity and destroying all the villages and supplies in their path. At the Genesee river, 84 miles to the east of Fort Niagara, Sullivan turned back for want of Is days rations instead of proceed ing to storm the fort which he was confident, and the British later ad- mitted, he could have taken. There was a noticeable decline in Indian activities following his withdrawal.
 Meanwhile in the east, the stall wart if ragged troops of the strug- gling States were driving the Brit