The Mohawk Valley was a principal pass to the interior between the Adirondack Mountains and the Allegheny Plateau. The Mohawks, one of the Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, lived here and barred westward white settlement. In the seventeenth century French Catholic missionaries from Canada visited them, and some suffered martyrdom. In 1712, with the aid of Queen Anne, an Anglican Chapel for the Mohawks was erected at Fort Hunter. Trade goods and furs were carried by river boats over the Mohawk between Albany and the West, and military expeditions followed the same route during the French and Indian War. From Fort Johnson, and after 1763 from Johnson Hall at Johnstown, Sir William Johnson conducted Indian affairs for the British government. During the Revolution, Tory and Indian raiders from Canada harassed Mohawk Valley settlements. The completion of the Erie Canal in 1825 and the formation of the New York Central Railroad in 1853 brought rapid settlement and industrial growth, and in the twentieth century improved highways followed this historic route long famed for scenic beauty.