Tracing the route marked on the map with his finger, he continued, “I see here your final leg of movement to the St. Lawrence is down the Chaudière River. That would be challenging for canoes. Descending in heavy batteaux this time of year will be extremely dangerous. The English translation of the French word Chaudière is ‘cauldron.’ It is appropriately named.”

By mid-afternoon we were all safely ashore on the east bank of the Kennebec, north of the confluence with the Sebasticook River, beside the decaying ruins of Fort Halifax.

Though moving roughly half our cargo up the old military road on the carts and wagons of Mr. Coolidge and his friends allowed the batteaux to float higher, the currents and wind conspired against our still inexperienced boat crews. Most of us spent hours in the water pushing and pulling the boats along. Mr. Coolidge’s wheeled transports beat the batteaux to Fort Halifax by nearly two hours.

We spent the remaining hours of daylight emptying the batteaux, packing what oakum we have left into leaks already apparent in the hulls and bottoms of our boats, and then re-packing and lashing down our cargoes.

When 1st Lt. Humphrey ordered a group of our Virginia Riflemen to start gathering tinder, kindling, and firewood for yet another bonfire, one of them replied, “No need, sir. Let’s just burn the damnable ‘battoes’ and walk to Quebec!” He wasn’t joking.

Ticonic Falls, Maine, on the Kennebec River

Thursday, September 28th, 1775

At dawn this morning Capt. Morgan dispatched Captain Hendricks, four Pennsylvania Riflemen, and an Indian guide in a canoe up the Kennebec to reconnoiter what the locals said would be our first portage. They were back in less than an hour to confirm the prognostication.

“It’s a half-mile long cascade just a half mile north of here,” Hendricks reported. “But the only decent portage around it is on the west side of the river and the footpath for our men who are walking is on the east side of the river. That means the ‘walkers’ will have to go up, beyond the portage, cross at a ford to the west side, and come back down to help move the boats and cargo up above the falls.”

On the advice of a local, Captain Morgan ordered the augmentation of each four-man boat crew with two additional “pole pushers” and sent everyone else in a single-file foot column up the narrow east-side trail behind an Indian guide who claimed to know the way to the ford.

Capt. Morgan, 1st Lt. Humphrey, and I got in our canoe with two of our “Headquarters Team” and paddled across the fast-flowing stream ahead of the batteau flotilla to determine where we could beach the boats on the west side of the Kennebec and unload them. There is no such place.