The central portions of the settlement, lying
within the bounds of the present city, contained ninety or a
hundred small houses, chiefly of wood and roofed with bark or
thatch. A well-built range of barracks afforded quarters for the
soldiery, and there were two public buildings--a council house
and a little church. The whole was surrounded by a square
palisade twenty-five feet high, with a wooden bastion at each
corner and a blockhouse over each gateway. A broad passageway,
the chemin du ronde, lay next to the palisade, and on little
narrow streets at the center the houses were grouped closely
together.
Above and below the fort the banks of the river were lined on
both sides, for a distance of eight or nine miles, with little
rectangular farms, so laid out as to give each a water-landing.
On each farm was a cottage, with a garden and orchard, surrounded
by a fence of rounded pickets; and the countryside rang with the
shouts and laughter of a prosperous and happy peasantry. Within
the limits of the settlement were villages of Ottawas,
Potawatomi, and Wyandots, with whose inhabitants the French lived
on free and easy terms.
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