The Oneida portage--as the carrying place between the Mohawk and Wood Creek is known in history--was guarded at its Mohawk terminus as early as 1732 by the erection of Fort Williams, and at the Wood Creek terminus as early as 1737 by Fort Bull. Throughout the century of conflict between French and English the Oneida portage route was of utmost importance. In the crucial years between 1755 and 1759 it was especially important. The route is thus described in a contemporaneous account:
"Oswego, along the accustomed route, is computed to be about 300 miles west from Albany. The first sixteen, to the village of Schenectady, is land carriage, in a good waggon road. From thence to the Little Falls in the Mohawk River, at sixty five miles distance, the battoes are set against a rapid stream; which too, in dry seasons, is so shallow, that the men are frequently obliged to turn out, and draw their craft over the rifts with inconceivable labour. At the Little Falls, the portage exceeds not a mile: the ground being marshy will admit of no wheel-carriage, and therefore the Germans who reside here, transport the battoes in sleds, which they keep for that purpose. The same conveyance is used at the Great Carrying-Place, sixty miles beyond the Little Falls; all the way to which the current is still adverse, and extremely swift. The portage here is longer or shorter, according to the dryness or wetness of the seasons. In the last summer months, when rains are not infrequent, it is usually six or eight miles across. Taking water again, we enter a narrow rivulet, called the Wood-creek, which leads into the Oneida Lake, distant forty miles. This stream, tho' favorable, being shallow, and its banks covered with thick woods, was at this time much obstructed with old logs and fallen trees. The Oneida Lake stretches from east to west about thirty miles, and in calm weather is passed with great facility. At its western extremity opens the Onondaga River, leading down to Oswego, situated at its entrance on the south side of the Lake Ontario. Extremely difficult and hazardous is the passage thro' this river, as it abounds with rifts and rocks; and the current flowing with surprising rapidity. The principal obstruction is twelve miles short of Oswego, and is a fall of about eleven feet perpendicular. The portage here is by land, not exceeding forty yards, before they launch for the last time."[56]