their canoes and camped for the night. During the night a terrific gale came up from the northeast. Awakened by the storm they made all shift to save their canoes and cargoes. Dollier's and de Galinée's canoes were saved, but the other one was swept away with its contents of provisions, goods for barter, ammunition, and, worst of all, the altar service, with which they intended establishing their mission among the Pottawatamies.
The loss of their altar service caused them to abandon the mission and they set out to return to Montreal, but strangely enough chose the long, roundabout journey by way of the Detroit, Lake Huron and the French River, in preference to the route by which they had come, or by the outlet of Lake Erie, which they had crossed the autumn before. Thus de Galinée and Dollier de Casson, like Joliet—not to revert to Champlain half a century earlier—missed the opportunity, which seemed to wait for them, of exploring the eastern end of Lake Erie, of correctly mapping the Niagara and observing and describing its incomparable cataract. Obviously the Niagara region was shunned less on account of its real difficulties, which were not then known, than through terror of the Iroquois. Our two Sulpitians reached Montreal June 18, 1670, which date marks the close of the third missionary visitation in the history of the Niagara.
And now I approach the point at which many writers of our local history have chosen to begin their story—the famous expedition of La Salle and his companions in 1678-'79. For the purpose of the present study we may omit the more familiar aspects of that adventure, and limit our regard to the acts of the holy men who continue the interrupted chain of missionary work on the Niagara. On December 6th, St. Nicholas Day, 1678, with an advance party under La Motte de Lussiére, came the Flemish Recollect, Louis Hennepin. As the bark in which they had crossed stormy Lake Ontario at length entered the Niagara, they chanted the Ambrosian hymn, "Te Deum Laudamus," and there is no gainsaying the sincerity of that thank-offering for perils escaped. Five days later, being encamped on the present site of Niagara, Ont., Father Hennepin celebrated the first mass ever said in the vicinity. A few days later, on the site of Lewiston, he had completed a bark chapel, in which was held the first Christian service which had been held on the eastern side of the Niagara since the visit of Brébeuf thirty-eight years before. Father Hennepin has left abundant chronicles of his activities on the Niagara. As soon as the construction of the Griffon was begun above the falls a chapel was established there, near the mouth of Cayuga Creek. Having blessed this pioneer vessel of the upper lakes, when she was launched, he set out for Fort Frontenac in the interests of the enterprise, and was accompanied to the Niagara, on his return, by the Superior of the mission, Father Gabriel de la Ribourde, and Fathers Zénobius Membré and Melithon Watteaux. All through that summer these devoted priests shared the varied labors of the camp. Hennepin tells us how he and his companions toiled back and forth over the portage around the falls, sometimes with their portable altar, sometimes with provisions, rigging or other equipment for the ship. "Father Gabriel," he says, "though of sixty-five years of age, bore with great vigor the fatigue of that journey, and went thrice up and down those three mountains, which are pretty high and steep." This glimpse of the saintly old priest is a reminiscence to cherish in our local annals. He was the last of a noble family in Burgundy who gave up worldly wealth and station to enter the Order of St. Francis. He came to Canada in 1670, and was the first Superior of the restored Recollect mission in that country. There is a discrepancy between Hennepin and Le Clercq as to his age; the former says he was sixty-five years old in 1679, when he was on the Niagara; the later speaks of him as being in his seventieth year in 1680. Of the three missionaries who with La Salle sailed up the Niagara in August, 1679, and with prayers and hymns boldly faced the dangers of the unknown lake, the venerable Father Gabriel was first of all to receive the martyr's crown. A year later, September 9, 1680, while engaged at his devotions, he was basely murdered by three Indians. To Father Membré there were allotted five years of missionary labor before he, too, was to fall a victim to the savage. Father Hennepin lived many years, and his chronicles stand to-day as in some respects the foundation of our local history. But cherish as we may the memory of this trio of missionaries, the imagination turns with a yet fonder regard back to the devoted priest who was not permitted to voyage westward from the Niagara with the gallant La Salle. When the Griffon sailed, Father Melithon Watteaux was left behind in the little palisaded house at Niagara as chaplain. He takes his place in our history as the first Catholic priest appointed to minister to whites in New York State. On May 27, 1679, La Salle had made a grant of land at Niagara to these Recollect Fathers, for a residence and cemetery, and this was the first property in the present State of New York to which the Catholic Church held title. Who can say what were the experiences of the priest during the succeeding winter in the loneliness and dangers of the savage-infested wilderness? Nowhere have I as yet found any detailed account of his sojourn. We know, however, that it was not long. During the succeeding years there was some passing to and fro. In 1680 La Salle, returning east, passed the site of his ruined and abandoned fort. He was again on the Niagara in 1681 with a considerable party bound for the Miami. Father Membré, who was with him, returned east in October, 1682, by the Niagara route; and La Salle himself passed down the river again in 1683—his last visit to the Niagara. His blockhouse, within which was Father Melithon's chapel, had been burned by the Senecas.
From this time on for over half a century the missionary work in our region centered at Fort Niagara, which still stands, a manifold reminder of the romantic past, at the mouth of the river. Four years after La Salle's last passage through the Niagara—in 1687—the Marquis de Denonville led his famous expedition against the Senecas. With him in this campaign was a band of Western Indians, who were attended by the Jesuit Father Enjalran. He was wounded in the battle with the Senecas near Boughton Hill, but appears to have accompanied de Denonville to his rendezvous on the site of Fort Niagara. Here he undoubtedly exercised his sacred office; and since the construction of Fort Niagara began at this time his name may head the list of priests officiating at that stronghold. He was soon after dispatched on a peace mission to the West, which was the special scene of his labors. His part, for some years to come, was to be an important one as Superior of the Jesuit Mission at Michillimackinac.
As soon as Fort Niagara was garrisoned, Father Jean de Lamberville was sent thither as chaplain. For the student, it would be profitable to dwell at length upon the ministrations of this devoted priest. He was of the Society of Jesus, had come out to Canada in 1668, and labored in the Onondaga mission from 1671 to 1687. His work is indelibly written on the history of missions in our State. He was the innocent cause of a party of Iroquois falling into the hands of the French, who sent them to France, where they toiled in the king's galleys. When de Denonville, in 1687, left at Fort Niagara a garrison of one hundred men under the Chevalier de la Mothe, Father Lamberville came to minister to them. The hostile Iroquois had been dealt a heavy blow, but a more insidious and dreadful enemy soon appeared within the gates. The provisions which had been left for the men proved utterly unfit for food, so that disease, with astounding swiftness, swept away most of the garrison, including the commander. Father Lamberville, himself, was soon stricken down with the scurvy. Every man in the fort would no doubt have perished but for the timely arrival of a party of friendly Miami Indians, through whose good offices the few survivors, Father Lamberville among them, were enabled to make their way to Catarouquoi—now Kingston, Ont. There he recovered; and he continued in the Canadian missions until 1698, when he returned to France.
Not willing to see his ambitious fort on the Niagara so soon abandoned, de Denonville sent out a new garrison and with them came Father Pierre Milet. He had labored, with rich results, among the Onondagas and Oneidas. No sooner was he among his countrymen, in this remote and forlorn corner of the earth, than he took up his spiritual work with characteristic zeal. On Good Friday of that year, 1688, in the center of the square within the palisades, he caused to be erected a great cross. It was of wood, eighteen feet high, hewn from the forest trees and neatly framed. On the arms of it was carved in abbreviated words the sacred legend, "Regnat, Vincit, Imperat Christus," and in the midst of it was engraven the Sacred Heart. Surrounded by the officers of the garrison—gallant men of France, with shining records, some of them were—by the soldiers, laborers and friendly Indians, Father Milet solemnly blessed it. Can you not see the little band, kneeling about that symbol of conquest? Around them were the humble cabins and quarters of the soldiers. One of them, holding the altar, was consecrated to worship. Beyond ran the palisades and earthworks—feeble fortifications between the feeble garrison and the limitless, foe-infested