The Fort had been erected nine years before our arrival, upon the
southern bank of a dull and sluggish stream, emptying into the Great Lake
from the west, and known to the earlier French explorers as the river
Chicagou. The spot selected was nearly that where an old-time French
trading-post had stood, although the latter had been deserted for so long
that no remnant of it yet lingered when the Americans first took
possession, and its site remained only as a vague tradition of those
Indian tribes whose representatives often visited these waters.

The earliest force despatched by the government to this frontier post
erected here a simple stockade of logs. These were placed standing on
end, firmly planted in the ground and extending upward some fifteen feet,
their tops sharpened as an additional protection against savage
assailants. This log stockade was built quite solid, save for one main
entrance, facing to the south and secured by a heavy, iron-studded gate,
with a subterranean or sunken passage leading out beneath the north wall
to the river, protected by a door which could be raised only from within.
The enclosure thus formed was sufficiently large to contain a somewhat
restricted parade-ground, about which were grouped the necessary
buildings of the garrison, the quarters for the officers, the soldiers'
barracks, the commandant's office, the guardhouse, and the magazine.
These rude structures were built in frontier style, of cleaved logs, and
with one exception were but a single story in height, so that their roofs
of rived shingles were well below the protection of the palisade of logs.
Besides these interior buildings, two block-houses were built, each
constructed so that the second story overhung the first, one of them,
standing at the southeast and one at the northwest corner of the
palisaded walls. A narrow wooden support, or walk, accessible only from
one or the other of these block-houses, enabled its defenders to stand
within the enclosure and look out over the row of sharpened logs.

At the time of our arrival the protective armament of this primitive
Fort, besides the small-arms of the garrison, consisted of three pieces
of light artillery, brass six-pounders of antique pattern, relics of the
Revolution. Outside the Fort enclosure, only a few yards to the west
along the river bank, stood the agency building, or, as it was often
termed, "goods factory," built for purposes of trading with the Indians,