1891-92. ] EARLY TRADERS. 261 
Monongahela and participated in the French triumphs at Oswego and 
Lake Champlain. 
The number of Indians living to the north of Lake Superior and Huron 
was vaguely estimated at 12,000 fighting men, chiefly Saulteaux and 
other clans of the great Ottawa Confederacy. Those about Lake Nip- 
issing, frequently termed the Lake Indians, were conjectured in the same 
loose way to amount to half that number, but very little was known about 
them as they had scarcely any commerce with the whites. They had no 
fire-arms and seemed to have no intercourse of any kind with other tribes. 
Rogers said that they appeared “to live as independent as if they had a 
whole world to themselves.” 
Traders from the English colonies hastened to occupy the new channels 
of trade suddenly opened to them by the fortunes of war. They followed 
hard on the heels of the victorious armies and sometimes even preceded 
them. 
When on his way to Detroit in 1761, Sir William Johnson found that 
a storehouse had already been built at the upper landing on the Niagara 
by Rutherford, Duncan & Co, who were preparing to monopolize the 
carrying-place around the Falls under authority of a permit from General 
Amherst. They had discovered a large quantity of hand-sawn plank 
left by the French in the Chippawa Creek and were using it to build a 
small vessel for the purpose of exploring the unknown shores of the 
upper lakes. 
Other merchants established themselves at Oswego where for a few 
years they carried on a greater Indian trade than at any other place on 
the continent. 
One of the first English merchants to make his way to the Lake Super- 
ior country was Alexander Henry who published an account of his early 
travels in 1809. In 1760, he accompanied General Amherst’s army in 
its advance upon Montreal, taking with him three boats loaded with 
merchandise. By singular ill-luck or mismanagement all his boats were 
swamped in attempting to run the rapids at the Cedars and he lost his 
entire stock. Undismayed by this disaster Henry immediately hurried 
back to Albany and secured a fresh supply. This was quickly sold at 
Fort Levi. Tempted by dazzling tales of the ease and rapidity with 
which fortunes were made at Mackinac, the great fur-market of the west, 
he resolved to go there next year. Even then he was not destined to be 
first in the field, for General Gage had already granted a passport for that 
place to Henry Bostwick, and it was with difficulty that he was persuaded 
to issue another as the French posts west of Detroit had not yet been 
18 
