The ruined walls of Fort
Ticonderoga are near the railroad landing. A little
south of this the lake grows so narrow as to
resemble a river. At its southern end,
twenty-four miles from Ticonderoga, is situated the
town of Whitehall, where the Champlain and
Hudson River Canal forms a junction with Lake
Champlain. This long river-like termination of
Champlain gave to the Indians the fancy of
calling it Tisinondrosa - "the tail of the lake;"
which in mouths inexperienced with the savage
tongue became corrupted into Ticonderoga.
Wednesday broke upon us a glorious day.
Proceeding three miles to Patterson's Landing,
into the "tail of the lake," I left the Mayeta to
explore on foot the shores of Lake George,
promising Bodfish to join him at Whitehall when
my work should be finished.
CHAPTER IV. FROM LAKES GEORGE AND CHAMPLAIN TO THE HUDSON RIVER.
THE DISCOVERY OF LAKE GEORGE BY FATHER JOGUES. - A
PEDESTRIAN JOURNEY. - THE HERMIT OF THE NARROWS. -
CONVENT OF ST. MARY'S OF THE LAKE. - THE PAULIST
FATHERS. - CANAL-ROUTE FROM LAKE CHAMPLAIN TO
ALBANY. - BODFISH RETURNS TO NEW JERSEY. - THE LITTLE
FLEET IN ITS HAVEN OF REST.
In the last chapter I gave, from seemingly
good authority, the appellation of the narrow
terminal water of the southern end of Lake
Champlain, "the tail of the lake." Another
authority, in describing Lake George, says:
"The Indians named the lake, on account of the
purity of its waters, Horicon, or 'silvery water;'
they also called it Canderi-oit, or 'the tail of
the lake,' on account of its connecting with Lake
Champlain." Cooper, in his "Last of the
Mohicans," says: "It occurred to me that the
French name of the lake was too complicated,
the American too commonplace, and the Indian
too unpronounceable for either to be used
familiarly in a work of fiction." So he called it
Horicon.
History furnishes us with the following facts
in regard to the discovery of the lake. While
journeying up the St. Lawrence in a fleet of
twelve canoes, on a mission to the friendly
Huron aborigines, Father Isaac Jogues and his two
friends, donnes of the mission, Rene Goupil and
Guillaume Couture, with another Frenchman,
were captured at the western end of Lake of
St. Peter by a band of Iroquois, which was on a
marauding expedition from the Mohawk River
country, near what is now the city of Troy. In
the panic caused by the sudden onslaught of the
Iroquois, the unconverted portion of the thirty-six
Huron allies of the Frenchmen fled into the
woods, while the christianized portion defended
the white men for a while. A reinforcement of
the enemy soon scattered these also, but not
until the Frenchmen and a few of the Hurons
were made captive.
