Drury Academy. |
should be made to strike a blow on the English frontier. Rigaud de
Vaudreuil was a person of some importance in Canada, and his brother was afterwards governor general of Canada. He had with him a force of about seven hundred men, of whom five hundred were French and the remainder Indians. Finding that the fort on Lake Champlain was not in danger of attack from the English, the French commander found himself with a free hand. He was in doubt where to strike. The Indians held numerous councils, but could not make up their minds. Finally some of the Indians who had lived on the borders of Massachusetts drew on the floor of the council room a map of a river, showing a fort near its head waters. The river thus shown was the Hoosac, and the fort was Fort Massachusetts. They pointed out the isolated position of the little fort and also implored assistance to avenge the death of Cadenaret, a chief who had been killed near the fort the year before. The scheme was acceptable to all, French and Indians alike; and so on they came, through Lake Champlain, down the Hudson, and up the valley of the Hoosac.
The Normal School |
On the banks of this river the invaders passed the houses of numerous Dutch settlers from the Hudson. These Dutchmen were not on the best of terms with the English soon to be attacked at Fort Massachusetts, and they fled, leaving their houses, furniture and cattle, and not even taking pains to warn the garrison, soon to be besieged, a few miles to the eastward. The Dutchmen perhaps had a grim smile on their faces as they thought of the storm soon to burst on the little fort; but when in a few days they re turned to their farms and found that the French party, on the return through the valley of the Hoosac, had burned one hundred and fifty houses, barns, churches and other buildings, besides destroying all the cattle and grain, their smiles
The Mark Hopkin’s School.
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