Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 9.djvu/183

 A Sunimei on the Great Lakes.

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��Great Lakes. Neither are its shores as picturesquely beautiful as those of Ontario, Huron, and Superior. Still it is a lovely and romantic body of water, and its historic memories are interesting and important. In this last respect all the Great Lakes are remarkable. Some of the most picturesque and interesting chapters of our colonial and military history have for their scenes the shores and the waters of these vast inland seas. A host of great names — Champlain, Frontenac, La Salle, Marquette, Perry, Tecumseh, and Harrison — has wreathed the lakes with glory. The scene of the stirrins: events in which Pontiac was the conspicuous figure is now marked on the map by such names as Detroit, Sandusky, Green Bay, and Mackinaw. The thunder of the battles of Lundy's Lane and the Thames was heard not far off, and the very waters of Lake Erie were once canopied with the sul- phur smoke from the cannon of Perry's conquering fleet.

We spent two days in Buffalo, and they were days well spent. This city is the second in size of the five Great Lake ports, being outranked only by Chicago. Founded in 1 801, it now boasts of a population of one hundred and sixty thousand souls. The site is a plain, which, from a point about two miles distant from the lake, slopes gently to the water's edge. The city has a water front of two and a half miles on the lake and of about the same extent on Niagara River. It has one of the finest harbors on the lake. The public build- ings are costly and imposing edifices, and many of the private residences are elegant. The pride of the city is its pubUc park of five hundred and thirty acres, laid out by Frederick Law 01m- stead in 1870. It has the reputation of

��being the healthiest city of the United States.

Buffalo was the home of Millard Fillmore, the thirteenth President of the United States. Here the great man spent the larger part of his life. He went there a poor youth of twenty, with four dollars in his pocket. He died there more than fifty years aftenvard worth one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and after having filled the highest offices his country could bestow upon him. He owned a beautiful and elegant residence in the city, situated on one of the avenues, with a frontage toward the lake, of which a fine view is obtained. It is a modern mansion, three stories in height, with large stately rooms. It looks very little different externally from some of its neighbors, but the fact that it was for thirty years the home of one of our Presidents gives it importance and invests it with historic charm.

On board a steamer bound for Detroit we again plowed the waves. The day was a delightful one ; the morning had been cloudy and some rain had fallen, but by ten o'clock the sky was clear, and the sunbeams went dancing over the laughing waters. Hugh was on his high- horse, and full of historic reminiscences.

" Do you know that this year is the two hundredth anniversary of a remark- able event for this lake?" he began. "Well, it is. It was in 1681, in the summer of the year, that the keel of the first vessel launched in Western waters was laid at a point six miles this side of the Niagara Falls. She was built by Count Frontenac who named her the Griffen. I should like to have sailed in it."

" Its speed could hardly equal that

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