1909 Champlain Tercentenary
Report of the NY Lake Champlain Tercentenary Commission
to the Legislature of the State of New York, Sept. 19, 1911

SAMUEL CHAMPLAIN
AND THE LAKE CHAMPLAIN TERCENTENARY

Mr. President, Members of the Vermont Historical Society, Ladies and Gentlemen:

The discovery of America awakened deep interest in European nations, and was followed in the sixteenth century by several trans-Atlantic voyages by Spanish, Portuguese, English and Dutch navigators. French colonization was early directed toward Canada, and in 1535 Jacques Cartier took possession of the northeasterly part of North America under the name of New France. One of the first colonies under M. de Roberval, suffered from the cold, damp climate, famine and disease, and was abandoned. Civil and religious discord obtained in the mother country, and not until Henry of Navarre became Henry IV, and a reign of peace ensued after a century of storm, did the French seriously turn their attention to the colonization of Canada.

Samuel Champlain, the Early Years

The little town was several times besieged and taken by the Huguenots, and retaken and garrisoned and commanded by distinguished officers of the French army. Notwithstanding the fact that Brouage was the shifting scene of war and peace it was the center of an extensive salt industry, manufactured from sea water let into basins through sluices, and evaporated by the sun and wind, and a port frequented by the vessels of the merchant marine of several countries, between which and this port was maintained an active commerce.

Champlain, in his earlier years, was thus made acquainted with military fortifications and engagements, as well as with practical navigation, of which he says: "This is the art which in my earlier years won my love, and has induced me to expose myself almost all my life to the impetuous waves of the ocean,” as stated by Edmund F. Slafter in his Memoir of Samuel Champlain.

Voyage to Mexico, Panama and Cuba

Edwin A. Dix, in his Life of Champlain, in speaking of the visit of Champlain to the city of Mexico, says: “He is enthusiastic over the beauty of the country; admires the forests with their rare woods, the birds of bright plumage, the spreading plains with herds of cattle, horses and sheep, the fertile agricultural lands, and the fine climate. Champlain himself in speaking of this condition, says: "But all the contentment I had felt at the sight of things so agreeable was but little in regard to that which I experienced when I beheld the beautiful city of Mexico, which I did not suppose had such superb buildings, with splendid temples, palaces and fine houses; and the streets well laid out, where are seen the large and handsome shops of the merchants, full of all sorts of very rich merchandise.’”

On his return he visited the fine harbor of Havana and refers to the Morro Fortress, then in existence and capable of being garrisoned. He returned to Spain after an absence of two years and two months, with his vessels laden with the rich products of the New World.

On his return to France in 1601, he rendered a full report of his voyage to the King, and gave a description of the methods of the Spaniards in colonizing the New World. He won the liking of the King, and a small income was settled upon him, which enabled him to live at court; but he was unwilling to live the life of a royal courtier.

First Voyage to Canada

On this voyage Champlain was enabled to confer with the Indians as to the topography of the country, the extent and courses of its rivers, and was informed by them of the large lakes and Niagara Falls to the southwest. This was the first information obtained by the whites of the existence of the great cataract, if such information were in fact given him.

On their return they took with them several Indians, and reached Havre de Grace on the 20th of September, 1603, after an absence of six months and six days. Champlain immediately repaired to the court of Henry IV, and reported at length upon the discoveries he had made in the New World, and presented a map of the regions he had visited, drawn by his own hand. He also gave a description of the fauna and flora and the inhabitants. The King was deeply interested in Champlain’s narrative, and offered to bestow upon him his favor and patronage.

Explorations Along the Atlantic Coast

It would be interesting to recount his experiences with the savages along the New England coast, the hardships which his little company endured during the cold winter months, exposed as they were to the proverbial northeasterly storms of the Atlantic, and poorly and but partially sheltered, without adequate food, and with maladies of various sorts, which swept away their numbers. However, time will not permit this to be done.

Suffice it to say, that he left a full and detailed description of the New England coast, with maps and drawings by his own hand, far superior to anything that had been left by the navigators who had preceded him along the New England coast. It is not difficult to imagine the pleasure afforded Champlain, who had a profound love for such explorations and adventures as he had made from Plymouth to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. On his return to France he took early opportunity to report the results of his explorations to the King, and present maps and drawings of the bays and harbors of the coasts which he had visited.

Quebec, First French Colony in Canada

The colony was small and precarious, but formed a base of operations from which many expeditions went forth in quest of objects most dear to Champlain’s heart. His two great desires were the discovery of a highway to the Indies, and especially in his later years, the conversion of the American aborigines to Christianity. It is this phase of his character, no doubt, which so enshrined him in the regard of the church, whose doctrines he sought to spread.

The recent Tercentenary Celebration of the Founding of Quebec is fresh in the minds of the American people; and those who witnessed the elaborate pageants presented there under the supervision of Frank Lascelles, will not soon forget the realistic representation of the thrilling events that occurred 300 years ago along the St. Lawrence and in the circumjacent territory, explored by Samuel Champlain and his colonists.

“After long and painful explorations on the waters and among the Indian tribes and after frequent voyages to France in the service of the colony,” he became Governor of Quebec in 1608. He was more of an explorer and navigator than a trader or colonizer, and accordingly his reputation has escaped the taint so common in the annals of New France, of illicit trade and fraudulent dealings, alike with the Indians and with the government. The profits of trade were simply a means to an end, and of little value otherwise.

The fall of 1608 was occupied by Champlain and his followers in erecting buildings and making preparations for the approach of winter. Forest trees were felled and hewed into shape for the construction of the walls and floors of buildings to accommodate the little band of colonists. During the fall there were twenty-eight men in the colony, but in the early winter disease made its appearance, which worked fearful havoc with them, and twenty of them were carried to their graves. The savages were hardly less free from famine and disease, and they gathered around the settlement in great numbers, in a condition of almost abject starvation. It was impossible for Champlain to supply them from his limited stores. The conditions were deplorable, and weighed heavily on Champlain’s heart, and his sympathies ran out to the savages, as well as to his own colonists, in their desperate and starving condition.

During the fall or early winter in one of his excursions up the St. Charles river he came upon a “crumbling stone chimney and other indications of a habitation, where Jacques Cartier and companions had passed the ill-fated winter of 1535 nearly three-quarters of a century earlier.” Was this ominous of what was to befall the colony at Quebec? Champlain, however, did not despair, but gave the sick and dying such shelter and attention as were possible for him with his limited supplies and depleted numbers. The coming of spring, however, revived the spirits of the eight survivors of the colony, and preparations were made for a tour of exploration during the approaching summer.

Champlain's Discovery of Lake Champlain

Champlain left Quebec on a tour of exploration on the 18th of June, 1609, with eleven men, together with a party of Montagnais. They ascended the St. Lawrence and came upon an encampment of two or three hundred Hurons and Algonquins, whose abode was on the shores of Lake Huron and the waters of the Ottawa. These desired to go to Quebec and inspect the fortifications there, of which they had been informed, before going to war, and Champlain acceded to their request; and after they had spent two or three days in examining the fortifications and in feasting and festivity, they again turned about and proceeded up the St. Lawrence and Richelieu rivers. In addition to Champlain and his two companions, there were sixty Indian warriors, and they were conveyed in twenty-four canoes. They proceeded up the Richelieu river, overcame the falls and rapids by transporting their canoes by land, and again entered the river above St. Johns, and proceeded toward the lake which now bears his name.

It was now in the month of July, 1609, when the Richelieu and the lake were in their most attractive vesture. Primeval forests with all the variety of temperate foliage covered the sloping banks and distant hillsides, and the balmy summer air was vocal with the songs of birds, whose plumage rivaled in beauty the native flowers of the valleys. The waters of the river and lake were teeming with many strange fishes unknown in salt water, and wild animals roamed over the beautiful islands, unmolested and undisturbed.

Samuel Champlain was possibly 42 years of age and bad seen something of the life of the courts of Europe and much of the life of the savages in America. He was a zealot in the faith and still had served under Henry of Navarre before he came to the throne. He had traveled extensively, visited many lands, made several voyages across the Atlantic in shallops so small that they would hardly be considered safe by sailors of today in storms on Lake Champlain, and he had distinguished himself as a sailor, navigator and colonizer. He was far from his native France and traveling with savages in terra incognita where the foot of the white man had never trod before.

The exhilaration of the explorer increased, as he proceeded southward up the Richeieu into the lake that bears his name. He tells his own story, admirably translated by A. A. Bourne, in his voyages and explorations as follows:

"I felt these rapids of the Iroquois river on July 2 (this date may have been July 12), 1609. All the savages began to carry their canoes, arms and baggage by land about half a league, in order to get by the swiftness and force of the rapids. This was quickly accomplished. Then they put them all in the water, and two men in each boat, with their baggage; and they made one of the men from each canoe go by land about a league and a half, the length of the rapid. . . . After we had passed the rapid, all the savages, . . . re-embarked in their canoes. . . . They had twenty-four canoes with sixty men in them.”

“We left the next day, continuing our course in the river as far as the entrance to the lake. In this there are many pretty islands, which are low, covered with very beautiful woods and meadows, where there is a quantity of game, and animals for hunting, such as stags, fallow-deer, fawns, roebucks, bears and other animals which come from the mainland to these islands. We caught a great many of them. There are also many beavers, not only in the river, but in many other little ones which empty into it. These places, although they are pleasant, are not inhabited by any savages, on account of their wars. They withdrew as far as possible from the river into the interior, in order not to be suddenly surprised."

"The next day we entered the lake, which is of great extent, perhaps 50 or 60 leagues long. There I saw four beautiful islands 10, 12 and 15 leagues long, which formerly had been inhabited by savages, like the River of the Iroquois; but they had been abandoned since they had been at war with one another. There are also several rivers which flow into the lake that are bordered by many fine trees, of the same sorts that we have in France, with a quantity of vines more beautiful than any I had seen in any other place; many chestnut trees, and I have not seen any at all before, except on the shores of the lake, where there is a great abundance of fish of a good many varieties.” . . .

“Continuing our course in this lake on the west side I saw, as I was observing the country, some very high mountains on the east side, with snow on the top of them. I inquired of the savages if these places were inhabited. They told me that they were — by the Iroquois — and that in these places there were beautiful valleys and open stretches fertile in grain, such as I had eaten in this country, with a great many other fruits; and that the lake went near some mountains, which were perhaps, as it seemed to me, about fifteen leagues from us. I saw on the south others not less high than the first, but they had no snow at all” It has been said that on one or more occasions snow has been seen on Mount Mansfield in the summer months.

Battle with the Iroquois

He thus describes their meeting: “‘When evening came we embarked in our canoes to continue on our way; and, as we were going along very quietly, and without making any noise, on the twenty-ninth of the month, we met the Iroquois at 10 o’clock at night at the end of a cape that projects into the lake on the west side, and they were coming to war. We both began to make loud cries, each getting his arms ready. We withdrew toward the water and the Iroquois went ashore and arranged their canoes in the line, and began to cut down trees with poor axes, which they get in war sometimes, and also with others, of stone; and they barricaded themselves very well."

“Our men also passed the whole night with their canoes drawn up close together, fastened to poles, so that they might not get scattered, and might fight all together, if there were need of it; we were on the water within arrow range of the side where their barricades were."

“When they were armed and in array, they sent two canoes set apart from the others to learn from their enemies if they wanted to fight. They replied that they desired nothing else; but that, at the moment, there was not much light and that they must wait for the daylight to recognize each other, and that as soon as the sun rose they would open the battle. This was accepted by our men; and while we waited, the whole night was passed in dances and songs, as much on one side as on the other, with endless insults, and other talk, such as the little courage they had, their feebleness and inability to make resistance against their arms, and that when day came they should feel it to their ruin.”

“As soon as we were ashore they began to run about 200 paces toward their enemy, who were standing firmly and had not yet noticed my companions, we went into the woods with some savages. Our men began to call me with loud cries; and, to give me a passageway, they divided into two parts and put me at their head, where I marched about twenty paces in front of them until I was thirty paces from the enemy. They at once saw me and halted, looking at me, and I at them. When I saw them making a move to shoot at us, I rested my arquebuse against my cheek and aimed directly at one of the three chiefs.

With the same shot two of them fell to the ground, and one of their companions, who was wounded and afterward died. I put four balls into my arquebuse. When our men saw this shot so favorable for them, they began to make cries so loud that one could not have heard it thunder. Meanwhile the arrows did not fail to fly from both sides.

The Iroquois were much astonished that two men had been so quickly killed, although they were provided with armor woven from cotton thread and from wood, proof against their arrows. This alarmed them greatly. As I was loading again, one of my companions fired a shot from the woods, which astonished them again to such a degree that, seeing their chief dead, they lost courage, took to flight and abandoned the field and their fort, fleeing into the depths of the woods.

Pursuing them thither I killed some more of them. Our savages also killed several of them and took ten or twelve of them prisoners. The rest escaped with the wounded, There were fifteen or sixteen of our men wounded by arrow shots, who were soon healed.

“This place, where this charge was made, is in latitude 43 degrees and some minutes, and I named the lake, Lake Champlain.”

There has been some controversy among historians as to the location of this engagement, but most agree that it was in the vicinity of Ticonderoga, although Mr. George F. Bixby, in a formal address before the Albany Institute on November 5, 1889, contends that the first battle of Lake Champlain occurred at Crown Point and his address on that occasion will be read with interest by those who hold the latter view.

The battle occurred on July 30, 1609, and produced implacable hatred on the part of the warlike Iroquois toward the French. Its effect upon the Iroquois, who thereafter arrayed themselves against the French, is too well known to require further mention.

Returning to Quebec

Champlain was the first white man to set foot upon the territory now comprising the State of New York, and from his description of the islands in Lake Champlain he may have visited them also. The first island that he discovered in Lake Champlain was Isle La Motte, which he saw as he entered the north end of the lake, and from its location he may have landed at Sandy Point, where a settlement was made a few years later.

Champlain and his two associates were undoubtedly the first white men to visit the territory now comprising the State of Vermont, and in his narrative he gives us the earliest account of its aboriginal occupancy. His journey through the lake afforded him a view of the beauties of its mountain scenery, the admiration of tourists ever after.

His discovery of the lake, to which he gave his name, occurred nearly two months prior to the discovery of the Hudson river by Henry Hudson, and set into operation a train of events that gave the valley its French settlement that continued for nearly a century and a half.

Long before its discovery by Samuel Champlain, in July, 1609, Lake Champlain was the resort and battle ground of the savage Algonquin, Huron and Iroquois Nations, who peopled its islands and circumjacent beautifully shaded and picturesque shores. It was a paradise for the aborigines, whose native customs and adventurous but precarious life were a startling revelation to such an explorer as Champlain, coming as he did from the refinements of French life in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Still he was hospitably received and escorted to and through the lake, then known as Caniaderiguarunte, which signifies the “gate of the country.” The lake was also known as Peta-wa-boque, meaning alternate land and water, and also as Mer des Iroquois. It was traversed by the warring Indian tribes, whose canoes formed picturesque flotillas in those early days on the blue waters of the lake.

Had Champlain been gifted with the poetic imagination of a Homer or a Virgil, he might have cast into an epic the story of his explorations and discoveries, which were quite as thrilling as those of the Iliad, the Odyssey, or the Aeneicl. Other poets have dwelt upon the beauties of this lake, and have sung of the tragic events that have occurred on its waters.

200 Years of Conflict

The grants of some of its islands and adjacent shores, lands under French seignories, were the subject of a long controversy between the French and British governments challenging on the one side the consideration of such officials as Marquis de Beauharnois and others under Louis XV and Louis XVI, and on the other side such statesmen as Lord Dartmouth, Edmund Burke and Sir Henry Moore, under the British crown. But few, if any occupations were made under French seignorial grants, and the controversy finally ended after the Seven Years’ French and Indian war, which terminated with the capture of Ticonderoga and Crown Point by the British in 1759, and the later sovereign control by the Americans during the Revolution.

The Champlain valley was the scene of important military and one naval engagement during the Revolutionary War, and permission has been obtained from the War Department to raise from the waters of Lake Champlain the Royal Savage at Valcour island, the flagship of Benedict Arnold during that engagement. The history of Ticonderoga and Macdonough’s victory at the Battle of Plattsburgh in September. 1814, are of such national importance as to merit Federal consideration during the forthcoming celebration of the discovery of the lake.

For two hundred years or longer the Champlain valley was the highway between Albany on the south and Quebec on the north, through which surged the tides of war and travel, until every prominent point and important island in the lake was marked by some notable event, worthy of historic mention. The proposed celebration of the discovery of the lake will commemorate some of these important events. Sewell S. Cutting, D.D., in a poem read at the University of Vermont in 1877, thus describes some of these events. He says:

I shift my theme, nor yet shall wander far,
My song shall linger where my memories are.
Dear Lake Champlain I thou hast historic fame,—
The world accords it in thy very name.
Not English speech these savage wilds first heard,
Not English prows that first these waters stirred;
Primeval forests cast their shadows dark,
On dusky forms in craft of fragile hark,
When first the pale face from the distant sea,
Brought hither conquering cross, and fleur de Us.
On frowning headlands rose the forts of France.—
Around them villages, and song, and dance.
Four generations came and passed away.
Of treacherous peace or sanguinary fray,
When hostile armies hostile flags unfurled,
To wage the destiny of half the world.

Samuel Champlain, the Last Years

Through his leadership his party was victorious, and after pillaging villages, destroying crops and leveling crude palisades, he returned to Quebec in the summer of 1616. From that time to 1627, Champlain made annual trips to France, On some of these he entered or departed from the Port of Dieppe, which I visited in 1905.

In 1629, a British fleet ascended the St. Lawrence river, and Champlain was forced to surrender, and was taken a captive to England. Before his arrival, however, peace was declared, and through the intervention of the French ambassador, upon information given in part to him by Champlain, the King of England, promised to restore New France to the French crown.

In 1632, Champlain was reappointed governor of the Colony of Quebec, and the following year assumed his duties as such. He was now an old man, with many infirmities, due to frontier service and many hardships, and on Christmas Day, 1633, passed away in his chamber at Quebec. He was there buried with such honors as could be bestowed upon him by the colony, but the site of his burial place is now unknown.

With the limited means at his disposal and the facilities afforded by the government which he represented, it may be safely said that he accomplished more than any other explorer of his age. His annual voyages across the Atlantic, in the frail barks of that time, tossed and tempest driven as they were by the fierce storms that swept the sea, were sufficient to have disheartened a navigator of less resolution than he, but these were only a few of the hardships to which he was exposed. The long winters spent in Canada, without proper protection from the elements, and with inadequate supplies, were hardships which few were able to endure. But in addition to these he explored vast areas of territory peopled only by savages, without proper food and with poor shelter, and exposed to all the maladies prevalent in a new and unsettled country.

He compiled narratives of his voyages and explorations and drew maps of the various places that he visited, which were among the first left by any explorer. He was brave, high minded and distinguished for his Christian zeal and purity. He often said that “the salvation of one soul is of more value than the conquest of an enemy.” He fostered Christianity and civilization, and succeeded in establishing a colony in Canada. He won and held the friendship of the Indians, who looked upon him as their most powerful friend and to whom they frequently repaired in time of trouble or distress..

“Of the pioneers of the North American forests,” says Parkman, “his name stands foremost on the lists. It was he who struck the deepest and boldest stroke into the heart of their pristine barbarism. At Chantilly, at Fontainebleau, at Pans, in the cabinets of princes, and of royalty itself, mingling with the proud vanities of the court; then lost from sight in the depths of Canada, the companion of savages, the sharer of their toils, privations and battles, more hardy, patient and bold than they, such for successive years were the alternations of this man’s life. He belonged partly to the past, partly to the present, the Preux Chevalier, the Crusader, the romance-loving explorer, the practical navigator, all claimed their share in him.”

Champlain Tercentenary

It is a matter of such importance as to challenge the attention not only of two States, but of the Federal Government, which will be invited to participate in the exercises. State, National and International events justify the co-operation of the Federal Government and the representation of two foreign governments. It is expected that the National Government will make suitable appropriation for that purpose, and will assume the responsibility of inviting and entertaining representatives from the Republic of France, the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Dominion of Canada. The diplomacy exhibited at the Quebec Tercentenary Celebration was such that the descendants of the French and English heartily co-operated in civil, military and naval festivities, commemorative of the important events of Canadian history. The Lake Champlain Tercentenary Celebration may also be made interesting if a similar spirit prevail among the peoples that participate in its conduct.

This is an age of historical as well as scientific research. The domain of empires long since perished and the foundations of buried cities are being explored to learn something of the civilization of the peoples who lived in the youth-hood of the world. As a result Crete is revealing the wonders of the Minoan age, which “immediately succeeded the Neolithic,” inspiring the poet to sing:

Oh! temples of the eternal mystery,
Oh! eternal mystery of temples I

The success of the Lake Champlain Tercentenary Celebration will largely depend on our fidelity to this duty and on our appreciation of the heroic services of those who have given it imperishable fame in the annals of American history.