In 1893, Frederick Jackson Turner delivered his frontier thesis. Turner’s thesis explored the North American frontier’s influence on the development of American identity. Though he prefers not to define the term “frontier” too narrowly, his meaning of the word essentially covers Indian country and the outer margins of “settled area.”[1] Like Turner, this paper will also explore the North American frontier. It will cover the period defined by Turner as the “Old West,” an area of space-occupying the coastal settlements of the seventeenth century and the trans-Alleghany settlements of the latter portion of the eighteenth century.[2] The Old Western frontier existed between 1676 to 1763.[3] During the French and Indian War, the North American theatre of the more massive Seven Years’ War, the Old West was a battleground between competing European imperial powers: France and Britain.[4] This essay covers the war as it was fought in the frontier space between New York and Canada. More specifically, this essay examines the critical role men like Joshua Moody played in the French and Indian War, that is, transporters who ferried troops and supplies up and down North America’s backcountry waterways.
Thanks to Joshua Moody’s record-keeping, he left behind a journal that reveals his experiences as a ship captain in the Old West during the Great War for Empire.[5] Examined in isolation, the journal is nothing of serious consequence. Only when examined in the broader context of the transformative effect’s transporters, like Moody, had on the war effort can the journal be appreciated. In addition to this, Moody’s journal provides modern scholars with a glimpse into the life of an eighteenth-century soldier-frontiersman in the Old West. This method of historical examination is largely influenced by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s book, A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812. Ulrich’s methodology is similar, making relevant a previously considered irrelevant historical document.[6] Unlike Ulrich, however, this paper will explore Moody’s contributions solely through a political theoretical lens. No consideration is given to the social history surrounding eighteenth-century transporters, an almost central consideration in Ulrich’s research.
Before delving into Moody’s journal, it is important that the reader acquaints themselves with the history of the world Moody occupied. This section of the essay will offer a brief history of England’s war with France in North America, giving special attention to the New York province. Ever since the New World’s settlement, European powers sought to exploit North America’s natural resources. France controlled Canada and much of the interior, including the Great Lakes Region, the Ohio Country, the Illinois Country, and land along the Mississippi River.[7] New France, the governing body of French possessions in North America, managed this vast territory.
Meanwhile, the British claimed dominion over the Atlantic coast from Maine to Georgia.[8] On the topic of population, Britain’s colonies boasted a vastly superior number of inhabitants than New France. By the 1750s, British settlers in North America numbered 1.5 million colonists, while only 75,000 residents resided in New France.[9] Hungry for land and territorial expansion, Britain pushed its North American settlement boundaries further west. This expansion eventually collided with French territorial interests in the Ohio Country. After the Battle of Jumonville Glen, an encounter that resulted in the accidental death of a French emissary, tensions between France and Britain quickly escalated.[10] The result of these tensions produced an outright war in 1754.[11] Formal declarations of war were not published, however, until 1756.[12] That conflict between France and Britain in North America would be known as the French and Indian War.
By 1762, the date in which Moody’s journal takes place, the Seven Years’ War in North America, had virtually ended. The remainder of the conflict was fought in the West Indies, India, and Europe.[13] After the fall of Montreal in September 1760, the looming French menace in the north had disappeared.[14] The French, however, still posed a threat in Louisiana.[15] Immediately after Britain’s conquest of Montreal, and with it the seat of New France, British civil government stepped in and assumed administration over the former French-controlled Canadian and western settlements (here considered the Illinois Country, Ohio Country, and the Great Lakes region).[16] By 1761, the British had secured all of Canada and its western outposts, establishing garrisons at even some of the most remote settlements.[17] In the wake of the conflict, settlers poured into the North American interior.[18] In New York, five hundred dwellings were built in the Mohawk Valley during the last few years of the war.[19] This attests to the rapid development the Old West experienced in New York during its final years of existence.
Despite the rapid growth and settlement of the Old West during the final years of the French and Indian War, the New York frontier, especially in the north - near and around the Adirondack Mountains, was still sparsely populated and, by following Turner’s definition, can be considered a frontier space. A 1762 Lake Champlain map attests to the region’s lack of developed settlement.[20] To encourage frontier colonization, Jeffrey Amherst envisioned settlement of the Old West by veterans of the French War.[21] He even encouraged would-be settlers to seek land-grants.[22] As such, between the years 1760 and 1763, the Lake Champlain region was slowly settled by both squatters and folk who bought land grants.[23] During this time, the Lake Champlain space was also a borderland without defined borders.[24]While British leadership waited for the establishment of defined borders in the region, later formalized by treaty negotiations in Europe, the movement of people and goods was monitored and restricted.[25] During Moody’s time as a ship captain, he no doubt looked out over the bow of his vessel and gazed upon a vast expanse of wilderness. The mountains, the lakes, the savannas: the abundance with which these existed in Moody’s time attests to the fact that he lived and worked on the fringe of civilization. But who was Joshua Moody? Based on his diary, it tells us that he was a Lieutenant serving on Lake Champlain in 1762.[26] We also know that he captained a sloop, the HMS Masquenange.[27] Other than this information, provided to us in the first few pages of his journal, Joshua Moody is a ghost in the historical record.[28]
Whoever he was and wherever he came from, Joshua Moody was issued orders on May 4, 1762, from Lieutenant Colonel Elliot of the 55th Regiment, then commanding His Majesty’s forces in the Northern District at Crown Point.[29] Moody’s orders were simple: march to Fort Ticonderoga and report to Lieutenant Alex Grant, who would grant him command of a vessel.[30] On May 4, 1762, Moody was stationed at Crown Point, ten miles from Fort Ticonderoga.[31] He made the journey and arrived at Fort Ticonderoga by foot on May 5, 1762.[32] That same day, he was given orders by the hand of Lieutenant Grant, who commanded “his Majesty’s Armed Vessels on Lake Champlain.”[33] Grant placed Moody in command of the HMS Masquenange and instructed him to ferry its contents between fort St. Johns and Crown Point.[34] He was also told to keep a diary and record daily accounts of his expeditions.[35] On the morning of May 6, 1762, Moody received his orders and cargo: escort two bateaux to fort St. John, an outpost much further north past Crown point on the left-hand side of Lake Champlain.[36] Orders in hand, he set sail at two o'clock in the morning on May 7, 1762.[37]
Moody reached Fort St. John on May 8 at seven in the morning.[38] He remained there for five days until he received orders to transport the 46th Regiment’s baggage to Fort Ticonderoga.[39] He set sail from St. John with the baggage at four o'clock in the afternoon.[40] He was accompanied by Colonel Browning, Captain Legg, Dr. Lock, Dr. Gillian, and a Lieutenant [name is ineligible in the diary].[41] He arrived at Ticonderoga on May 14, 1762.[42]Afterward, on May 15, he proceeded back to Crown Point, where he received ten days’ worth of provisions for himself and his crew.[43] On May 16 he set sail for St. John at five o'clock in the morning, arriving there at four o'clock in the afternoon.[44] On May 18, he set out for Montreal, arriving there at eight o'clock in the evening.[45] He returned to St John on May 19 at ten o'clock at night.[46] Accompanied by a Grenadier of the 58th Regiment, including his regiment’s baggage, Moody sailed at sunrise on May 21 for Crown Point.[47] The remainder of the journal recounts Moody’s trips between Fort St John, Crown Point, Montreal, and Fort Ticonderoga. On June 14, he delivered wooden planks to engineers at Crown Point.[48] From June 21 through the 23, he ferried soldiers of the 44th Regiment between St. John and Crown Point.[49] On June 29, he was ordered to return the HMS Masquenange to Ticonderoga, which he did on June 30.[50] No more journal entries are recorded after he delivered the sloop.
Alone, Joshua Moody’s journal reveals nothing significant to the average academic historian. He met no one of consequence, saw nothing noteworthy, and was absent from any significant defining historical event. Indeed, many entries of his diary simply read, “Nothing Remarkable.”[51] However, when Moody’s journal is examined from a political theoretical perspective, taking into consideration the larger role men like Moody played, Moody’s diary reveals insights about the critical role transporters played during the French and Indian War. For it was Moody, and men like him, who transported supplies and soldiers to their various destinations along Lake Champlain, then a frontier borderland in 1762. While this does not sound impressive in and of itself, let us consider the environment the British military found themselves in between the frontier space of Canada and New York from 1760 to 1763. During the French and Indian War, waterways were the main source of transportation for supplies and men of war.[52] This was due to the confined constraints imposed upon travelers by the thick woods, which covered the region at the time. These woods proved to be a hindrance to transportation, as evidenced by Braddock’s march when the army was forced to hack a road through the thick Pennsylvania forest and the very slow progress with which this was done.[53] Transporting an army through North America’s untamed wilderness was a slow and arduous process. It was much quicker to make use of the various rivers and lakes, which were found in abundance in the backcountry. The ease and speed with which large amounts of goods could be carried compounded the essentiality of waterway use.[54]
Water vessels were essential to both British and French military operations during the French and Indian War. For evidence that proves this point, look no further than the French siege of Fort William Henry in 1757 and Major General James Abercromby’s assault on Fort Carillon (Fort Ticonderoga) in 1758. Confident of a weakened British force on the New York frontier, the French assembled an army of 8,000 men at Fort Carillon.[55] In July 1757, French forces invaded Fort William Henry, a British controlled fort situated at the south end of Lake George. Because Fort William Henry threatened the existence of French-controlled Fort Carillon, William Henry needed to be knocked out of commission. In early August 1757, a fleet of 250 French bateaux and 150 Indian war canoes sailed south from the northern tip of Lake George.[56] The fleet was loaded with roughly four thousand men and cannon.[57] After their landing, Fort William Henry fell in a week.[58] In this instance, boat craft proved instrumental in the speedy delivery of men, artillery, and supplies resulting in the defeat of the British garrison stationed at William Henry. In a similar fashion, the utilization of watercraft for military purposes was not restricted to French forces. In July 1758, James Abercromby assembled a force of 16,000 men at the foot of Lake George with the intent of using this sizeable force to bring about the fall of Fort Carillon.[59] Nine hundred boats were used to transport Abercromby’s invasion force across Lake George from its southern end to its northern tip.[60] These transport ships were instrumental in securing quick passage of the British force, which would have taken much, much longer than just the single day it took had the army been forced to march on foot.[61]
The significance of transporters in the French and Indian War, as evidenced in the New York frontier, were instrumental in transporting troops and supplies across vast distances in short periods. The significance of transporters during the Seven Years’ War in North America has gone underrated for far too long. This essay serves as a case study to bring to light an underdeveloped aspect of French and Indian War scholarship in the New York/Montreal borderlands. While the boats themselves have been given their credit in accounts of the war, the men who captained such vessels are severely underrepresented. Joshua Moody’s journal provides a glimpse into the life of such transporters. Without him, men like him, and their bravery in navigating North America’s frontier rivers and lakes, many of the events we know about the French and Indian War would have never come to pass. Or at least they would have turned out differently. The speed with which transports delivered troops and goods produced a conflict we are familiar with as it is recounted in history books still to this day. Without these transports or their captains for that matter, an entirely different war would have resulted from France and Britain’s North American contest. This is true, especially considering how slow travel would have been for fully equipped armies navigating overland routes in North America, which were then covered in thick forest. Slow movement across the board would have produced a much slower-paced/progressing conflict, which, in turn, would have possibly prolonged the war and thus prolonged history.[62] Ultimately, while Joshua Moody’s Journal offers no substantial insights when examined as a stand-alone journal, it does show the life of a man whose contributions in the French and Indian War were instrumental to the progress and development of the conflict in the Old West.
Anderson, Fred. Crucible of War: The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British North America. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000.
Baugh, Daniel. The Global Seven Years War, 1754-1763. New York: Routledge, 2014.
Calloway, Colin G. The Scratch of a Pen: 1763 and the Transformation of North America. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Gunther, Michael. “Forty-Five Degrees of Separation: Imperial and Indigenous Geographical Knowledge and the Bordering of Quebec in the 1760s.” Essays in History 51 (2018). http://www.essaysinhistory.com/forty-five-degrees-of-separation-imperial-and-indigenous-geographical-knowledge-and-the-bordering-of-quebec-in-the-1760s/.
Halsey, Francis Whiting. The Old New York Frontier: Its Wars with Indians and Tories, Its Missionary Schools, Pioneers, and Land Titles. 1901. Reprint, London: Forgotten Books, 2015.
Hamilton, Edward P. The French and Indian Wars: The Story of Battles and Forts in the Wilderness. Edited by Lewis Gannett. Garden City: Doubleday & Company, 1962.
Jennings, Francis. Empire of Fortune: Crowns, Colonies & Tribes in the Seven Years War in America. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1988.
Johnson, Rossiter. A History of The French War: Ending in the Conquest of Canada. 1882. Reprint, Westminster: Heritage Books, 2007.
Leach, Douglas Edward. Arms for Empire: A Military History of the British Colonies in North America, 1607-1763. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1973.
Marston, Daniel. The French-Indian War, 1754-1760. Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2002.
Moody, Joshua. Journal of Joshua Moody. Mss A 2007. R. Stanton Avery Special Collections, New England Historic Genealogical Society, online at DigitalCollections.AmericanAncestors.org.
Parkman, Francis. Francis Parkman: The Oregon Trail, The Conspiracy of Pontiac. Edited by William R. Taylor. New York: Library of America, 1991.
Quinn, Frederick. The French Overseas Empire. Westport: Praeger, 2000.
Ulrich, Laurel Thatcher. A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990.
The American Military Pocket Atlas; Being An approved Collection of Correct Maps, Both General and Particular, of The British Colonies; Especially those who now are, or probably maybe The Theatre of War: Taken principally from the actual Surveys and judicious Observations of Engineers De Brahm and Romans; Cook, Jackson, and Collet; Maj. Holland, and other Officers Employed in His Majesty’s Fleets and Armies. London: R. Sayer and J. Bennet, 1776. From the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/americanmilitary00unkn/page/n21/mode/2up.
Turner, Andrew Jackson. The Frontier in American History. 1920. Reprint, New York: Barns & Noble, 2009.
[1] Andrew Jackson Turner, The Frontier in American History (1920; reprint, New York: Barns & Noble, 2009), 2.
[3] Turner, The Frontier in American History, 42.
[4] For more reading see: Colin G. Calloway, The Scratch of a Pen: 1763 and the Transformation of North America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006); Francis Parkman, Francis Parkman: The Oregon Trail, The Conspiracy of Pontiac, edited by William R. Taylor (New York: Library of America, 1991).
[5] The Great War for Empire is the more appropriate term to call the Seven Years’ War in North America and not the French and Indian War, although they are both acceptable. Their use is made interchangeably throughout the essay.
[6] Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990), 25.
[7] Frederick Quinn, The French Overseas Empire (Westport: Praeger, 2000), 67.
[8] William M. Fowler Jr., Empires at War: The French and Indian War and the Struggle for North America, 1754-1763 (New York: Walker & Company, 2006), 2.
[9] Daniel Marston, The French-Indian War, 1754-1760 (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2002), 7.
[10] Fred Anderson, Crucible of War: The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British North America (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000), 50-65.
[11] Marston, The French-Indian War, 11.
[12] Marston, The French-Indian War, 27.
[13] Daniel Baugh, The Global Seven Years War, 1754-1763 (New York: Routledge, 2014), 453-619.
[14] Francis Jennings, Empire of Fortune: Crowns, Colonies & Tribes in the Seven Years War in America (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), 425.
[15] Douglas Edward Leach, Arms for Empire: A Military History of the British Colonies in North America, 1607-1763 (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1973), 486.
[17] Leach, Arms for Empire, 487.
[18] Leach, Arms for Empire, 487.
[19] Francis Whiting Halsey, The Old New York Frontier: Its Wars with Indians and Tories, Its Missionary Schools, Pioneers and Land Titles(1901; reprint, London: Forgotten Books, 2015), 117-121.
[20] William Brassier, A Survey of Lake Champlain, including Lake George, Crown Point and St. John, in The American Military Pocket Atlas; Being An approved Collection of Correct Maps, Both General and Particular, of The British Colonies; Especially those which now are, or probably may be The Theatre of War: Taken principally from the actual Surveys and judicious Observations of Engineers De Brahm and Romans; Cook, Jackson, and Collet; Maj. Holland, and other Officers Employed in His Majesty’s Fleets and Armies (London: R. Sayer and J. Bennet, 1776), from Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/americanmilitary00unkn/page/n21/mode/2up.
[21] Another term to describe the French and Indian War.
[22] Michael Gunther, “Forty-Five Degrees of Separation: Imperial and Indigenous Geographical Knowledge and the Bordering of Quebec in the 1760s,” Essays in History 51 (2018). http://www.essaysinhistory.com/forty-five-degrees-of-separation-imperial-and-indigenous-geographical-knowledge-and-the-bordering-of-quebec-in-the-1760s/.
[23] Gunther, “Forty-Five Degrees of Separation,” Essays in History.
[24] Gunther, “Forty-Five Degrees of Separation,” Essays in History.
[25] Gunther, “Forty-Five Degrees of Separation,” Essays in History.
[26] Joshua Moody, Journal of Joshua Moody, Mss A 2007, R. Stanton Avery Special Collections, New England Historic Genealogical Society, online at DigitalCollections.AmericanAncestors.org.
[27] Journal of Joshua Moody, Mss A 2007.
[28] Although this essay does not explore Moody’s genealogy, that does not mean that he does not exist in the historical record. Traces of Moody and his ancestry may be found in the New England Historic Genealogical Society. At the time of writing this essay, those records were rendered inaccessible due to the Coronavirus Pandemic which restricted the author’s travel and access to archival sources.
[29] Journal of Joshua Moody, Mss A 2007.
[30] Journal of Joshua Moody, Mss A 2007.
[31] Journal of Joshua Moody, Mss A 2007.
[32] Journal of Joshua Moody, Mss A 2007.
[33] Journal of Joshua Moody, Mss A 2007.
[34] Journal of Joshua Moody, Mss A 2007.
[35] Journal of Joshua Moody, Mss A 2007.
[36] Journal of Joshua Moody, Mss A 2007.
[38] Journal of Joshua Moody, Mss A 2007.
[39] Journal of Joshua Moody, Mss A 2007.
[40] Journal of Joshua Moody, Mss A 2007.
[41] Journal of Joshua Moody, Mss A 2007.
[42] Journal of Joshua Moody, Mss A 2007.
[43] Journal of Joshua Moody, Mss A 2007.
[44] Journal of Joshua Moody, Mss A 2007.
[45] Journal of Joshua Moody, Mss A 2007.
[46] Journal of Joshua Moody, Mss A 2007.
[47] Journal of Joshua Moody, Mss A 2007.
[48] Journal of Joshua Moody, Mss A 2007.
[49] Journal of Joshua Moody, Mss A 2007.
[50] Journal of Joshua Moody, Mss A 2007.
[51] Journal of Joshua Moody, Mss A 2007.
[52] Edward P. Hamilton, The French and Indian Wars: The Story of Battles and Forts in the Wilderness, edited by Lewis Gannett (Garden City: Doubleday & Company, 1962), 3-20.
[53] Rossiter Johnson, A History of The French War: Ending in the Conquest of Canada (1882; reprint, Westminster: Heritage Books, 2007), 215.
[54] Hamilton, The French and Indian Wars, 3-20.
[55] Hamilton, The French and Indian Wars, 199.
[56] Anderson, Crucible of War, 190-191.
[57] Anderson, Crucible of War, 190-191.
[58] Anderson, Crucible of War, 195-196.
[61] Hamilton, The French and Indian Wars, 219.
[62] The American Revolution, an important after-effect of the French and Indian War, would have possibly been delayed since Britain would have attempted to raise taxes much later than 1763.
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