Among the Thousand Islands. 



58i 







GENERAL VIEW FROM BLUFF ISLAND. 



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f-'-mmi 



French possessions, and was 



finally captured during the 



war of 181 2 by a party of 



Americans under command 



of one Hubbard, an ex- 

 Revolutionary soldier, who 



found this once large and 



important fortress under the 



immediate command of two 



women and three invalids ; 



an Ichabod of forts, its glory 

 had departed. The women and invalids were valorously attacked, 

 and after a slight resistance they capitulated ; the poor old fort, 

 as if to accelerate its already progressing ruin, was fired, and the 

 Americans with their prisoners retired to the main-land, where they 

 were received with salutes, cheers, and the music of the Cape 

 Vincent band, — one fife and a drum. 



Since that day the fort has never been rebuilt, but has been 

 allowed gradually to crumble away into ruin, producing, as fruit of 

 its semi-mythical history, a rich crop of romantic stories and legends. 

 An antiquated well, dug through the solid Trenton limestone to the 

 level of the lake, has been converted by the vivid imaginations of the 

 natives into a receptacle of the doubloons which the French upon 

 evacuating the fort are said to have thrown therein, with the brass 

 cannons on top of them : though why they threw their doubloons 

 $7* 



