CHAPTER XXVII The Henry Clay, the First Steamer to Reach the Sault in 1827General Winfield Scott Accompanied by Governor Cass Inspects Fort Brady-Fort Drummond Evacuated in 1828-The Welland Canal Opened-Immense Business of the Fur Companies-Rev. Abel Bingham Establishes the Baptist Mission-The First Protestant School-Presbyterian Church Formed by Rev. Jeremiah PorterWho Afterwards Forms the First Presbyterian Church in ChicagoThe "Agency" Built in 1826-7—Jesuit Mission Reestablished 1834Methodist Mission at Little Rapids. THE first steamboat on the Great Lakes to reach as far north as the Sault was the Henry Clay in 1827,' having on board no less august personages than Generals Lewis Cass and Winfield Scott. The story of the first steamer to ascend the St. Marys River farther than the Neebish, is interestingly told by one of the passengers on the trip.2 "In 1827," said Dr. Whitney, General Cass called upon me to accompany a treaty expedition to the Buttes de Morts, or Hills of the Dead, on the Fox River about forty miles above Green Bay [Wisconsin]. The treaty was to be executed between General Cass and Col. McKinney, Indian Agent at Washington, joint high commissioners for the United States, and the Winnebagoes, Pottawattomies, Foxes, Sacs and Menominees. The expedition went out on board the steamer Henry Clay, 1 Story of the Great Lakes, Channing and Lansing, p. 361. 2 Dr. J. L. Whitney, quoted in an article by Leslie Thom, in the Detroit Evening News, April 30, 1880, republished in Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collection, vol. iv, p. 118. a first class vessel in her time. She had only a main deck, which was a fore and after with a cabin below. The affair was regarded as a splendid chance for speculation, so the steamer was loaded down with Detroit merchants and their goods. I was myself entrusted with $3000 worth of goods of one kind and another, which I disposed of to advantage. One of the passengers was General Winfield Scott who was on a tour of inspection of forts and posts, and as two companies were stationed at Sault Ste. Marie, he persuaded the captain to take him there. This is how the first steam boat voyage came to be made.' The general was about 40 hours inspecting the post, and while he was busy we were having a splendid time enjoying ourselves in pleasure and trade. There were about a dozen beautiful young ladies on board, and we had a dance nearly every night. The after cabin was given up to the demoiselles, so General Scott used to sleep on the dining table every night, with a sperm candle burning at either side of his pillow; for there was an awful deal of fuss and feathers about the old fellow, even at that stage of his career. It might be a subject of inquiry to the curious, whether General Scott received his well known sobriquet of "Old Fuss and Feathers" from this incident? The statement that the general slept with a candle at either side of his pillow can hardly be taken seriously. It is hardly possible the gallant old fighter was afraid to sleep in the dark; more likely it was the mad prank of practical jokers in the attempt to give to the table and its burden the semblance of a bier, mutely insinuating that the general was a dead one. Efforts on the part of the British government, stimulated by the prayers and importunities of British fur 'Charles T. Harvey, in an address before the legislative committee printed in A Trip Through the Lakes, p. 49, states that "The first steamer to visit the Sault was in 1839." traders, to control the St. Marys River, the southern gateway to their field of operations, seemed destined to failure. We have seen the unfortunate position in which the British fur traders were placed, through the outcome of the war of 1812 and the consequent loss of Michilimackinac, and their almost frantic efforts to settle upon some place on the St. Marys River which could be made to take the place of the stronghold which they had lost: we have seen the discussion of various proposed sites and the final determination to fortify Drummond near the Detour, and now when they are but nicely settled there, they learn to their intense chagrin and disgust, that they are still on United States territory and must, in turn, abandon Drummond. April 23d, 1824, Lord Dalhousie, military commander in Canada, writes from Quebec to the Duke of Wellington, that he has for some time been in expectation of receiving orders to give up Drummond Island to the American government in consequence of the report of the commission for ascertaining the boundary line, placing it within the territory of the United States, and recommends establishing a post at "the Falls of St. Mary's, where the Hudson's Bay and North West Company have an establishment consisting of several buildings which they have offered to sell at a very moderate price.' The fur company offered their buildings to the government for Eighteen Hundred Pounds; they were reported as very incomplete and that it would take as much more to put them in a habitable state. In a report of a commission September 9th, 1825, the disadvantages of the Sault as set forth were: the difficulty of forwarding supplies from Amherstberg for the reason that, although only 45 miles from Drummond, Michigan Pioneer Collection, vol. xxiii, p. 436. |