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while a heavy sea-wall, forty feet in height, is built along the bluff that borders the cove. Several chimneys are still standing within the fort and near it, built of stone in a permanent and massive manner, while the remains of guard houses, rifle-pits and wells are still plainly visible. Not far from the fort is an old burying-ground, in which many graves were found, and on the south side of the island was a large clearing of some thirty acres, called the King's garden. Along the western shore of the little cove are still to be seen the remains of a sunken dock. Many relics have from time to time been found near the fort, all bearing marks of British origin.

In 1796 the surveyors of Macomb's purchase found a British corporal and three men in charge of Carleton Island, and four long twelve and two six-pound cannon mounted on the works.

This island was occupied by the British until the war of 1812, when its little garrison was surprised and taken by the Americans, by whom it has ever since been occupied.

After the war the right to Carleton Island became the subject of much diplomatic correspondence between the two governments. This controversy was carried on during the presidency of Mr. Monroe by John Q. Adams, Secretary of State, on our part. It resulted in the boundary line being drawn to the north of the island, leaving it in American

waters.

And now this little island, so fraught with historic memories, is the summer resort of the Carleton Island Club, an association of gentlemen who have built their summer cottage and pitch their tents on the meadow that borders the banks of the "pretty port" of the old chronicler, and in sight

of the decaying walls of the old fort. Here in this enchanting spot, among the Thousand Isles, made classic in American story by the presence long ago of a Champlain, a La Hontan, a La Salle, a Courcelle, a Frontenac, a De la Barre, a Charlevoix, they take a yearly respite from busy toil, and while away the fleeting hours of the short Canadian summer in careless repose, dispensing a right royal hospitality.

IV.

LA PRESENTATION.

The city of Ogdensburgh is in all respects a modern city. Nothing along her streets, or in her surroundings, indicates a day's existence earlier than the beginning of the nineteenth century. Yet she is built upon the site of a city of the dead, and her modern dwellings rest upon the ruins of ancient hearth-stones. The mission of La Presentation was founded in the year 1749, on the banks of the St. Lawrence, at the mouth of the Oswegatchie River, by the celebrated Sulspician Missionary Father Picquet, upon the site of the old Indian village named Swa-gatch.

In colonial times, the St. Lawrence was one of the great highways of the continent. In the olden time an Indian trail led from the Mohawk Valley to the St. Lawrence. This trail from the Mohawk ran up the West Canada Creek, and a branch of it from Fort Stanwix up the valley of the Lansing Kill to the waters of the Black River; thence down the valley of the Black River to the Great Bend below Carthage; thence over a short carry to the Indian River; thence down the Indian River and through Black Lake into the River O-swa-gatch, and down that stream to the St.

Lawrence. It was at the northern termination of this old Indian trail at the mouth of the O-swa-gatch that the Abbé Picquet founded, in the year 1749, his mission and settlement of La Presentation, so often afterward the terror of the settlers in the Mohawk valley. As early as the 20th of October of that year Father Picquet had completed at his mission a palisaded fort, a house, a barn, a stable, and an oven. He commenced a clearing, and the first year had but six heads of families, but in 1751 there were three hundred and ninety-six families of Christian Iroquois, comprising in all about three thousand people, in the little colony. The object of this mission was to attach, if possible, the Iroquois cantons to the French. In all the battles and massacres of the French and Indian wars in the Mohawk valley, at Lake George and along the Hudson, up to Montcalm's defeat in 1759, the O-swa-gatch Indians played a conspicuous part. But in 1760, at the conquest of Canada, the post of La Presentation fell into the hands of the English, and the fort was for many years afterward occupied by a British garrison.

François Picquet, doctor of the Sorbonne, King's Missionary and Prefect Apostolic to Canada, was born at Bourg in Bresse, on the 6th of December, 1708. At the early age of seventeen he became a missionary, and at twenty entered the Congregation of Saint Sulspice. In 1733 he was led to the Missions of North America, where, as we have seen, he labored with such zeal for thirty years that he obtained the title of "The Apostle of the Iroquois." He returned to France, and died at Verjon on the 15th of July, 1781.

To-day two important railroad lines follow the old Indian

trails between the Mohawk and the St. Lawrence, and as the mission of La Presentation took the place of the old Indian village Swa-gatch at the northern end of the old wartrail, so, to-day, the modern city of Ogdensburgh, situate at the northern terminus of the railroad lines, takes the place of La Presentation. Of this mission scarce a relic now remains, save the corner-stone of the main building, which is still preserved, bearing the inscription:

In nomine + Dei omnipotentis

Huic habitationi initia dedit

Frans. Picquet, 1749.

Like Tryon county, its twin sister, the county of Charlotte is now almost a mythical name in the annals of New York. The county of Charlotte, as the reader has already seen, was set off from the county of Albany and formed on the 24th day of March, 1772. It was so named in honor of the Princess Charlotte, daughter of George III, or as some say, of the Queen Consort, Charlotte of MecklenburghStrelitz. It included all that part of the state which lay to the east of the Tryon county line, and to the north of the present counties of Saratoga and Rensselaer, embracing the present counties of Washington, Warren, Essex and Clinton, the eastern part of Franklin county, and the western half of the state of Vermont.

Fort Edward was made the county-seat of Charlotte county, and the first court was held at the house of Patrick Smith in that village, on the 19th of October, 1773, by Judges William Duer and Philip Schuyler. The first clerk of the court was Daniel McCrea, the brother of Jeanie McCrea, whose tragic death soon after occured near where the court then sat.

Among the important land grants made in colonial times was the singular one made by Gov. Fletcher on the 3d of