In 1751, approximately 3,000 Iroquois lived in villages on both sides of the Oswegatchie River and the small islands between them, with the most influential families in the three villages neighboring Fort de la Présentation. Their homes numbered nearly 50 longhouses, each 60 to 80 feet long and housing three or four families. After Fort de la Présentation was built, a village began to develop outside the fort walls. During the French and Indian War, the French fort and the Oswegatchie Iroquois villages were of strategic concern to the British. By 1754, more than half of the Onondagas had moved to the Iroquois villages near the fort. The Oswegatchie Iroquois also maintained strategic trading relationships with Palatine German settlers to the south in German Flatts, New York, and the British feared the Germans might serve as a supply source for war against them. The Oswegatchie Iroquois distinguished themselves in battle and diplomacy, and beginning in 1756 they appeared before Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Tuscarora, and Oneida leaders to argue the usefulness of siding with the French. After the French defeat, Abbé Picquet was forced to flee Fort de la Présentation in 1759 with the help of his Iroquois friends and converts.