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 interest themselves in them, map their exact routes minutely, locate the old springs, licks, forts, and traders' cabins, before all trace and recollection of them is lost.

Passing westward from Niagara the first explorers of the West found the shortest route from the lakes to the Ohio was by a portage from Chautauqua Creek to Chautauqua Lake and from thence down the Conewango to the Allegheny River. Whether or not this was the most practicable route it was, at first, of major importance. The shortest route was all too long for men on missions such as that of Céloron bearing his leaden plates to the Ohio Valley in 1749.

There was, undoubtedly, an Indian portage between Lake Erie and Lake Chautauqua before Céloron's expedition, but it would seem that now the first roadway was built here. Céloron reached Niagara River July 6, 1749. He departed on the fifteenth, and "on the 16th," wrote Father Bonnècamps "we arrived early at