The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 by Walter R. Nursey
page 60 of 176 (34%)
page 60 of 176 (34%)
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double-spoke affairs, without any circular rim. A stage-coach also ran
between Queenston and Fort Erie, the first in Upper Canada. For one dollar the passenger could travel twenty-five miles. At Fort Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, Brock embarked in mid-August in a government schooner. He wished to familiarize himself with the upper water-ways. He made the long trip from Quebec to York, and thence to Niagara, Amherstburg, Detroit, Sandwich and return overland to Fort George, within two months--record time. Dobson accompanied his master. Brock was silent as to his impressions, but admitted he was convinced that the water route for a military expedition was the only practical one, and that Mackinaw, held by the United States, was the portal and key to the western frontier in case of invasion. He crossed overland through the "bad woods" and open plains to the Point of Pines, where batteaux and canoes awaited him. From thence he proceeded along the north shore of Lake Erie until abreast of the Miami, a confluent of the Ohio River, on the south shore, then turned northward up the Detroit River, twenty-five miles farther, reaching Amherstburg--called Malden by the Americans--250 miles from Fort Erie. Here, after consulting with Colonel St. George, he inspected the battery at Sandwich, and with little ceremony visited Detroit--the old military post of Pontchartrain--on the opposite side of the river, later notorious as an emporium for "rum, tomahawks and gunpowder." From Amherstburg, a small village with an uncompleted fort and shipyard, he sent messengers to the remote post of St. Joseph, an island, fifty-five miles from Mackinaw, below Sault Ste. Marie, and started homewards overland. In returning, he skirted the great tributary marshes, alive with water-fowl of every description, whose gabble and flapping wings could |
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