Benedict Arnold's Expedition To Quebec - The Great Carrying Place

The Great Carrying Place

The Great Carrying Place was a portage of roughly 12 miles (19 km), bypassing an unnavigable section of the Dead River, the tributary of the Kennebec that the expedition was to follow. The portage included a rise in elevation of about 1,000 feet (305 m) to the high points of the carry, with three ponds along the way. Lieutenant Church, the leader of the survey team, described the route as a "bad road but capable of being made good", an assessment that turned out to be somewhat optimistic.

The vanguard of the main body, led by Daniel Morgan, met Lieutenant Steele's advance scouting party en route to the first pond. This party had successfully scouted the route to the height of land above the Dead River, but the men were near starvation. Their supplies had been depleted, and they were largely subsisting on a protein-rich diet of fish, moose, and duck. Most of the men continued to supplement their meager supplies with the local wildlife as the expedition continued.

Church, in his description of the route, had failed to account for the heavy rains and the generally boggy conditions between the first and second ponds. Rain and snow slowed the long portage, and the expedition had its first casualty when a falling tree killed one of the party. Some of the men who drank the brackish waters along the way became violently ill, forcing Arnold to order construction of a shelter at the second pond as cover for the sick, and to send some men back to Fort Halifax for supplies that had been cached there.

The first two battalions finally reached the Dead River on October 13, and Arnold arrived three days later. At this point, Arnold wrote a number of letters informing Washington and Montgomery of his progress. Several letters intended for Montgomery were intercepted and turned over to Quebec's Lieutenant Governor Hector Theophilus de Cramahé, giving Quebec its first notice that the expedition was on its way. Arnold also dispatched the survey team again, this time to mark the trail all the way to Lake Mégantic.