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Cornell University Library 1993.AN ANCIENT
WRECK AND STOCKADE.
TWO PAPERS READ BEFORE THE SOCIETY, MARCH 4, 1867.
BY E. H. STEWART AND O. H. MARSHALL.
[mr. stewart’s paper.]
Knowing that your Society appreciates even the smallest
•scrap of the early history of this county, and that every man
.should investigate at. least the history of the lot on which he
lives, I send you my researches on Lot 50, T. 9, R: 8, Holland
Land Company’s Purchase. On part of this lot, north of
Eighteen-Mile creek, Ebenezer Ingersoll settled with his fam-
ily in 1811. The first business of the new settler was to clear
away the forest; and, in cutting down a large black oak, he
found a spot near the heart where it had been cut with an axe,
apparently more than a century before. One hundred grains
were counted outside the old cut.
Near this tree, and to the north, he came upon an old stock-
ade on the bank of Lake Erie, with its opening toward the
lake. At first he regarded it merely as a ridge in the land;
but, on examining, found that this ridge ran around in a semi-
circular form, one-half to three-fourths of an acre; and in this
ridge were still to be found the bottoms of the palings. He
traced these palings* set close together, around the entire ridge,212
AN ANCIENT
to the top of the high bank of the lake. In front of this stock-
ade under the bank, toward the lake, was about one acre and
a half of land, covered with timber; on which, after being
cleared, they raised crops; but which has since been washed
away, and is now mostly covered with water. He found inside
these palings various articles: what they called a Spanish dirk-
knife, nine inches long, with brass handle; a bayonet; a long,
narrow, iron axe; iron cask hoops; a small kettle and other
articles.- Some new discoveries were made at every plowing.
Inside the palings and on the ridge, trees—mostly maple and
beech—stood, from eight to twenty-four inches in diameter.
Some twenty or thirty rods to the west of this paling, on
land first purchased by Abraham Brinkerhof, and on the top
of the bank, were foutid about half a bushel of iron spikes
eight or nine inches long, such as are used on vessels. This
excited curiosity; and, on looking about, near a tree covered
with moss, they found a large iron ring, or, as they called it, a
withe for a mast; having a joint on one side, and locking on
the other, with a slot for a key to draw it together; and on the
other side was an eye to receive a hook or staple. This ring
weighed seventy-five pounds. A large quantity of iron was
found; consisting of smaller rings, large iron links or loops,
short flat bars of iron, &c. The iron found was abundant for
their blacksmithing purposes for many years. Colonel A. J.
Myer is now the owner of the land on wdiich were found the
stockade and these relics.
At the mouth of the Eighteen-Mile creek about one hundred
rods from this stockade, in the sand on the beach, two small
cannon were found in 1815. They were about 3-pounders.
Some accounts make them brass, some iron guns; at all events,
there is no doubt but that two guns were found there. The late
R. S. Ingersoll informed me that there was a litigation between
two men named Ward and Walker, about the possession of
these guns. One of them was used at a Fourth of July cele-
bration at Abbott’s Corners in this county; but what has be-WRECK AND STOCKADE.
213
come of them I cannot learn. An account of these cannon by
Mr. Peters, of Evans, will be found in the History of the Hol-
land Land Company.
A small anchor was found, also, near where these cannon
were. These facts were obtained from R. S., G. S. and John
Ingersoll, sons of Ebenezer Ingersoll, above mentioned.
These relics point to the wreck of one of the early trading
wessels, at the mouth of this creek. Some have conjectured it
to be the Griffin, but it is more likely to have been the Beaver.
What this stockade could have been built for, or by whom,
it is difficult to conjecture. It is hardly probable that the
crew of the wrecked vessel would have built a stockade so
near the place where the vessel must have stranded.
This paper, however, was not written to establish any theory,
but to give facts; and now, having given the facts, I leave the
learned members of your Society to speculate upon them.
[mr. marshall’s paper.]
There have been many speculations in regard to the vessel,
the remains of which are the subject of Mr. Stewart’s commu-
nication. An examination of the manuscripts of Sir William
Johnson has satisfied me that the vessel was an English trans-
port,—wrecked on the eighth day of August, 1763, on her
voyage from Fort Schlosser to Detroit.
After wresting from the French the fortresses of Niagara
and Quebec, in 1759, the English found it essential for the
protection and advancement of their interests on the great
Western lakes, to construct suitable vessels for the transporta-
tion of troops and supplies.
It appears from the journal of Sir William Johnson, kept in
1761, that during that year a schooner was built on Navy214
AN ANCIENT
Island, in the Niagara river. Sir William states that he left it
on the stocks on the twenty-sixth day of August, on his way
to Detroit; and on his return—five weeks later—found it
anchored in the rapids, about a mile from Lake Erie, where
“the current was running six knots an hour.”
It appears from the same journal, under date of October
5th, that a sloop was building on Navy Island the same year,
but would not be finished until next spring. It may be men-
tioned in this connection, that to this day, the Senecas, in allu-
sion to the building of the above vessels, call Navy Island,
“The Big Canoe Island.”
Pontiac had held Detroit under his remarkable siege during,
the spring and summer of 1763. The garrison had suffered
much from want of supplies; and the sloop, having- been
finished in 1762, was despatched the following summer from
Fort Schlosser with the much-needed succor. A storm over-
took her on this errand of mercy, and she was driven ashore
at the mouth of Eighteen-Mile creek, on the eighth day of
August, 1763. De Couagne, the Indian interpreter, announced
its loss in a letter to Sir William Johnson, which, unfortunately,
has not been preserved. In a subsequent one, written from
Niagara on the eighth of the following September, he says:
“ In my last I wrote you that the sloop was lost upon Lake Erie. Since ,
they have been on shore they have been attacked by a few straggling Indians
and have lost three men in the breastworks, and one that was scalped.
Daniel and the rest of the Indians behaved very well.”
A more particular account of the wreck is contained in a
letter from Colin Andrews to Sir William Johnson, dated at
“Cat Fish Creek, fourteen miles in Lake Erie, Sept. 9th, 1763,”
and which reads as follows:
“ According to Daniel Oughnour’s desire, I now take the freedom to write-
to you. The 8th ultimo, we have been cast away at this place, which de-
tained him from proceeding to Detroit; but he says he will go forward, and
deliver your belts, and bring you an answer from the different nations,,
according to your directions. The 3d instant we had three men killed by a.WRECK AND STOCKADE.
215
small party of Indians. Daniel spoke to them a little distance from the
breastwork, but they would not tell what nation they were. He says he
believes they are Senecas (Cinices.) We expect the schooner from Detroit
daily. Aaron and five Indians went in her to Detroit. Daniel gives his
compliments to you and family, and desires the favor of you, in case you see
his wife, to tell her he is well.”	[Signed,]
“Colin Andrews.”
It will be noticed that the letter bears date at “ Cat Fisk
Creek, fourteen miles in Lake Erie.” No stream answers to this
distance but Eighteen-Mile creek. The discovery oh the re-
mains of a vessel and “breastwork” near its mouth, as related
by Mr. Stewart, seems to lead irresistibly to the conclusion
that they all have reference to the wreck of 1763.	f
Major Wilkins wrote from Niagara on the thirtieth day of
August, 1763, to Major Alexander Duncan, then in command
of Fort Ontario (now Oswego), that “the sloop was run ashore
about twenty miles from the mouth of Lake Erie; going with
provisions to Detroit.”
“ This,” Major Duncan remarks, in a letter to Sir William Johnson, “is
a very unlucky accident, as there is no other vessel but a small schooner,
which carried about two hundred barrels to supply Detroit with provisions.”
In a letter from Captain Gavin Cochrane to Sir William
Johnson, dated at Fort Johnson, November 5th, 1763, he says:
“Captain Daniel, at parting, pressed me much to give an account of his
behavior while with me, when I was guarding the wreck. I was there about
a fortnight, and in all that time he was but once drunk. Always at my
elbow, and very industrious to do everything to ingratiate himself with me;
and so was Jacob, who was with me. We were fired at for near two hours
by 25 or 30 Indians, as we guessed from the tracks afterwards; and Daniel
kept close by me and showed great zeal. We lost three men. The enemy
came very near, but we could not get one shot at them.”
The writer of this letter was a captain in the Royal Ameri-
cans; became a colonel in the British army in 1782, and died
in 1786.
Sir William Johnson, in a letter to Sir Jeffrey Amherst, dated
September 14th, 1763, alludes to the loss of this vessel as2l6
AN ANCIENT WRECK AND STOCKADE.
“very unlucky at this juncture;” and expresses apprehension
“lest the Indians should burn the other when the frost set in.”
The name of the wrecked sloop was the Beaver; that of its
consort the Gladwin. The latter was also subsequently lost
on Lake Erie with all her crew, through the obstinacy of her
commander in not providing sufficient ballast.