THERE

OSWEGO.

HERE is a certain incongruity in the aspect, prospects, and antecedents of Oswego. One of the earliest frontier posts, it had every chance of becoming a great mart; but later settlements have repeatedly outstripped it in apparent growth, while its natural advantages are unrivaled. The first inhalation of the breeze from the lake whereon it is situated, assures us we are in a far more salubrious region than most of the younger cities of Western New York; the position, arrangement for business, and ancient memories of the place combine to excite our anticipations; but we approach it, by land, on a railway which intersects a rough and imperfectly cleared region, quite behind the fertility of the country which divides the other inland cities of the state. On its most elevated site we find a large stone edifice called the United States Hotel, which is unoccupied for want of support; and yet, as you gaze from its piazzas over lake, woods, river, pier, light-house, churches, stores, and dwellings, it is difficult to imagine a more desirable summer residence within a day's journey of the metropolis; even five miles back the climate is quite different; the pure, bracing air here is at once grateful and invigorating; yet few seek Oswego because it is only accessible by a single and uninviting railroad; business is proverbially spasmodic; speculation exceeds regular trade; and its great material, breadstuffs, so vary in supply, that this being one of the largest depôts, a transitory activity is the natural consequence. Yet its trade is greater than that of Buffalo; it numbers seventeen thousand inhabitants; twenty-four thousand dollars were appropriated this year for public education; its banking capital is eight hundred thousand dollars; within a few months, a fine new bridge and handsome stone Episcopal church have been erected, and Gerritt Smith has endowed a free library, which already boasts a substantial building, four thousand admirably selected volumes, and an adequate fund invested; five millions of property is taxed here, which is about one third of the whole.

Octogenarian residents speak of the time when they knew Oswego as a thickly wooded place, with an old and a new fort, a single inn, a few stores, and three or four mansions, occupied by gentlemen induced

to take up their abode here because possessed of vast acres, of some of which they disposed for a mere nominal equivalent; hunting and hospitality, with occasional journeys to New York and Niagara, and some interest in politics, diversified their isolated, but agreeable and independent life; and such of their heirs as retained land, realized subsequently large returns.

Ex-President Van Buren is one of the large land owners here; squatters occupy many of his lots at present unavailable otherwise.

The lake sailors form a characteristic class of the population; and a vigorous old woman, mother of four captains, gave me a vivid idea of the salubrity of the place, associated with frontier wars, the expeditions of Montcalm and Shirley, and the rule of Frontenac and Barnett, with the early development of the great resources of the state after the revolution and the Canada trade. Fort, mole, pharos, derricks, store-houses, craft of various kinds, factories, and ship-building attest the navigable, deposit, and transportation facilities of Oswego at the first glance.

The recent discussion in the journals of what are called discriminating canal tolls, suggests an important and peculiar element of its local prosperity. But this was originally, and is forever indicated by the grand inland sea on whose borders it is situated; and the lover of nature as well as the political economist finds therein a primitive and permanent attraction, whether invested with the gray mist of summer, crystalline in the frosty atmosphere, or arrayed in the most gorgeous and versatile tints, gleaming with the peculiar light of every precious stone in the lapidary's cabinet; under the magic beams of morning, noon, and especially sunset; or reviving Arctic memories when heaped with masses of ice by gales, stagnant in the azure and glittering calm of the intense and still cold of protracted winter; or heaving up its mailed bosom in the throes of the freshet.

As the summers are brief the gardens bloom late, and a profusion of Michigan roses make the front yards and porch columns look gay, and the yellow rose is abundant. Late in June, along the plank walks and by the neat domiciles, lilacs, sweetbriar, and woodbine make the breeze fragrant, and masses of snow-buds linger into winter. Before the few humble cottages of the old French emigrés, many of

primitive epic, its charms in the shape of hasty pudding. A shop in the London Strand dispenses it as the Yankee condiment; and, as the crisp hoe-cake, it is the relish of a Virginia breakfast. The Indians have a favorite legend explaining its origin as one of the chief gifts of the Great Spirit to man. The green banners and white tassels of the maize, quivering in the breeze and sunshine of June, or the golden ears at harvest, are among the most auspicious of nature's annual spectacles. It used to be sold by cord in the ear; in the West it is stored in open houses; here we see it in barge-loads of kernels, coming and going on the canals, rising and descending in spouts from the elevators; it heats intensely from moisture.

There is one form of maize which is almost peculiar as an original commodity here. At every corner grocery in our seaboard cities are to be seen little square boxes, with the Oswego brand thereon, containing what is called "Corn Starch;" it has become a domestic staple for puddings, and its manufacture is a special industry of this place. For some years the secret whereby maize was converted into this nutritious edible, resembling in consistency and appearance, when fresh from the housewife's mold, blanc mange — except that its color is a pale straw or deep yellow was in the exclusive possession of an Englishman, who has made more than one fortune out of his monopoly; of late, the method has been revealed by one of his workmen, and another establishment thrives beside its rival. The advantage of Oswego for such a manufacture is obvious; it is a great mart for Indian corn; its central position, and the facilities for transportation, are additional benefits. To make starch cheap was long a desideratum; the ingredient which wrought the miracle in meal is believed to be ash-soda. Experiments of the kind have been partially successful elsewhere; but the Oswego corn-starch, in quality and quantity, has thus far carried the palm. The yellow kernels having been ground in mills, the meal is thoroughly soaked in vats; fermentation ensues, and causes an odor far from agreeable to unaccustomed nostrils; it leaves a deposit, and is conveyed into other vats, where the chemical agents are mingled, and passing thence in a milky stream, the thick residuum is molded, like bricks or loaves

of bread, and resembles cubes of chalk or plaster; it is exposed, in this form, to a graduated heat, and when the moisture is entirely evaporated, the brown surface is carefully scraped off, and the snowy block papered; it dries thoroughly after coming from the kiln, and the moment the paper is opened crumbles into beautiful white flakes, like the process of crystallization, and is thus transferred to boxes of the capacity of twenty pounds each. The meal is soaked thirty days; in the original factory, where a hundred men are usually employed, it is estimated that fourteen hundred dollars' worth of this article is daily prepared for market; the addition of eggs, a flavoring extract and cooking, results in a nutritious pudding. The swill is conveyed to a neighboring distillery, and is turned into whisky, the surplus feeding a multitude of swine.

Here, as elsewhere in this State, the water power and facilities, by their grand scale and communication, impress the visitor with the wonderful union in nature of beauty and use. Oswego is situated at the junction of the magnificent Lake Ontario and the river which gives its name to the city, formerly, and now sometimes, called the Onondaga. The waters of no less than eight lakes from the interior flow through this river; Canandaigua, Crooked, Seneca, Cayuga, Owasco, Skaneateles, Onondaga, and Oneida, with their numerous little tributaries, and they drain a surface of four thousand five hundred square miles. Oswego and Ontario are the aboriginal appellations for rapid water and pretty lake. The great advantages of the locality from hydraulic power, and commercial position with reference to Canada and the great West, were recognized at an early date; and the French, who always selected frontier posts with a view to military occupation, made a rendezvous of Oswego when, in July, 1696, Frontenac prepared his famous expedition against the Five Nations. This, like the other enterprises of those colonists, was intended to confine the English to the Atlantic seaboard. The historical process began with trading depôts, which were protected by friendly natives; then, as hostilities between the rival Europeans and the Indians, and themselves, respectively, occurred, these posts became more and more fortifications, and from serving as landmarks and refuges to fur peddlers,

missionaries, and travelers, they subsequently formed the nucleus of populous and prosperous American towns; thus Pittsburgh marks the site of Fort Duquesne, and Utica of Fort Schuyler. The son of the famous English bishop, Burnet, who wrote the notable "History of his own Times," while provincial governor of New-York, built and manned a trading-house and small fort at Oswego, in 1727, in order to gain and keep control of the lakes. Beauharnais ordered Burnet to relinquish the project, which he declined to do; and in order to keep the balance of power, and retaliate, took possession of Crown Point, and erected Fort Frederic there. While Braddock was on his way to a memorable defeat, Shirley, governor of Massachusetts, at the head of fifteen hundred provincials and Indians, traversed the wilderness between Albany and Oswego, (then a perilous and fatiguing journey,) and reached the latter place with his weary followers, to learn the bloody and fatal tidings of Braddock's overthrow, whose successor he became, and instantly strengthened Oswego with two other forts, and began his preparations to make an attack upon Fort Niagara; his own defeat by Montcalm, and the latter's fall, succeeded; and the ruined forts were long a melancholy sight to the Six Nations. In 1757 the English again took possession of Fort Ontario, and two years after it was rebuilt on a larger scale. No action occurred there during the Revolution; but "a detachment of rangers and a few Indians, under Col. St. Leger, were ordered to penetrate by Oswego to the Mohawk, and capture and hold Fort Schuyler, at the head of boat navigation, and thence, re-enforced by Sir John Johnson, with his numerous adherents, to join Burgoyne with the main body at Albany."

At the close of the war Washington sent an expedition thither, more for vigilance than conquest; Willett, the leader, attempted to scale the fort, but was obliged to retreat. In 1796 it was given up by the English, according to the treaty of peace. During the last war the British made an unsuccessful attempt to seize national property at Oswego, and vented their disappointment, as usual, by wanton mischief. And now the trading log cabin of the pioneers, the frontier post of the hunter, the fort of the rival emigrants, the VOL. XI.-41

resort of the friendly and goal of the vindictive savage, the resting-place of the Jesuit missionary, and the weary pilgrim of the wild, the little village of the Revolution, is a prosperous city; massive stone piers, erected by the United States government, stretch into the lake; long and solid bridges span the river; and where Montcalm landed amid a dense forest and on a lonely shore, is the populous center of commerce, where canal, railway, and steamers unite and distribute the products of the vast inland region, and stimulate productive industry in the varied forms of commerce, manufactures, agriculture, and transportation. In the midst of the late financial pressure, twenty-two grainladen vessels arrived at Oswego in one day, mostly from Chicago, and about the same time, says a local journal,

"An extraordinary story reaches us, which we give as we received it. When it was first told us we were fully convinced that it was a hoax, but subsequent investigation compels us to say that the statements come well authenticated, and with every appearance of truth. The report is, that two men, named respectively Ward and Hall, were at work down the lake shore, some miles from this city, getting out hoop stuff, when they discovered a small keg buried in the sand. This they dug out, and opening it, found it contained sixteen hundred silver pieces. The coins were of an ancient French cast, and of the denomination of sevenfranc pieces, valued at one dollar and nine cents each. The two men with their treasure have

left for Philadelphia, where they intend to exchange their coin at the Mint."

A dwelling now occupies the site of the mound once captured by Montcalm; the old fort stood on a tongue of land at the mouth of the river. A year or two ago some workmen, while grading what is called Botta Island, found a human skull, the back of which was pierced with a musket ball; it was found inside slightly flattened. This was doubtless the relic of one of the victims of the fight which occurred here, in 1756, between Colonel Broadstreet and his three hundred batteaux men and seven hundred French and Indians. The previous year Shirley had left the same number of men to garrison the fortifications he began here, and Deskau's great object, we are told, in reducing Albany, was to "cut off all communication with Oswego." A thrill of trepidation ran through the sparse settlements in what is now Western New York when the news sped that Forts Ontario and Os