Gen. Sullivan with a large army arrives at Canandaigua.--Indians'
troubles.--Determine to stop their march.--Skirmish at Connessius
Lake.--Circumstances attending the Execution of an Oneida warrior.
Escape of an Indian Prisoner.--Lieut. Boyd and another man taken
Prisoners.--Cruelty of Boyd's Execution.--Indians retreat to the
woods.--Sullivan comes on to Genesee Flats and destroys the property
of the Indians.--Returns.--Indians return.--Mrs. Jemison goes to
Gardow.--Her Employment there.--Attention of an old Negro to her
safety, &c.--Severe Winter.--Sufferings of the Indians.--Destruction
of Game.--Indians' Expedition to the Mohawk.--Capture old John O'Bail,
&c.--Other Prisoners taken, &c.
For four or five years we sustained no loss in the war, except in the
few who had been killed in distant battles; and our tribe, because of
the remoteness of its situation, from the enemy, felt secure from an
attack. At length, in the fall of 1779, intelligence was received that
a large and powerful army of the rebels, under the command of General
Sullivan, was making rapid progress towards our settlement, burning
and destroying the huts and corn-fields; killing the cattle, hogs
and horses, and cutting down the fruit trees belonging to the Indians
throughout the country.
Our Indians immediately became alarmed, and suffered every thing but
death from fear that they should be taken by surprize, and totally
destroyed at a single blow. But in order to prevent so great a
catastrophe, they sent out a few spies who were to keep themselves at
a short distance in front of the invading army, in order to watch its
operations, and give information of its advances and success.
Sullivan arrived at Canandaigua Lake, and had finished his work of
destruction there, and it was ascertained that he was about to march to
our flats, when our Indians resolved to give him battle on the way, and
prevent, if possible, the distresses to which they knew we should be
subjected, if he should succeed in reaching our town. Accordingly they
sent all their women and children into the woods a little west of Little
Beard's Town, in order that we might make a good retreat if it should be
necessary, and then, well armed, set out to face the conquering enemy.
The place which they fixed upon for their battle ground lay between
Honeoy Creek and the head of Connessius Lake.
At length a scouting party from Sullivan's army arrived at the spot
selected, when the Indians arose from their ambush with all the
fierceness and terror that it was possible for them to exercise, and
directly put the party upon a retreat. Two Oneida Indians were all the
prisoners that were taken in that skirmish. One of them was a pilot of
Gen. Sullivan, and had been very active in the war, rendering to the
people of the states essential services. At the commencement of the
revolution he had a brother older than himself, who resolved to join the
British service, and endeavored by all the art that he was capable of
using to persuade his brother to accompany him; but his arguments proved
abortive. This went to the British, and that joined the American army.
At this critical juncture they met, one in the capacity of a conqueror,
the other in that of a prisoner; and as an Indian seldom forgets a
countenance that he has seen, they recognized each other at sight.
Envy and revenge glared in the features of the conquering savage, as he
advanced to his brother (the prisoner) in all the haughtiness of
Indian pride, heightened by a sense of power, and addressed him in the
following manner:
"Brother, you have merited death! The hatchet or the war-club shall
finish your career!--When I begged of you to follow me in the fortunes
of war, you was deaf to my cries--you spurned my entreaties!
"Brother! you have merited death and shall have your deserts! When the
rebels raised their hatchets to fight their good master, you sharpened
your knife, you brightened your rifle and led on our foes to the fields
of our fathers'--You have merited death and shall die by our hands! When
those rebels had drove us from the fields of our fathers to seek out
new homes, it was you who could dare to step forth as their pilot, and
conduct them even to the doors of our wigwams, to butcher our children
and put us to death! No crime can be greater!--But though you have
merited death and shall die on this spot, my hands shall not be stained
in the blood of a brother! _Who will strike_?"
Little Beard, who was standing by, as soon as the speech was ended,
struck the prisoner on the head with his tomahawk, and despatched him at
once!
Little Beard then informed the other Indian prisoner that as they were
at war with the whites only, and not with the Indians, they would spare
his life, and after a while give him his liberty in an honorable manner.
The Oneida warrior, however, was jealous of Little Beard's fidelity;
and suspecting that he should soon fall by his hands, watched for a
favorable opportunity to make his escape; which he soon effected. Two
Indians were leading him, one on each side, when he made a violent
effort, threw them upon the ground, and run for his life towards where
the main body of the American army was encamped. The Indians pursued
him without success; but in their absence they fell in with a small
detachment of Sullivan's men, with whom they had a short but severe
skirmish, in which they killed a number of the enemy, took Capt. or
Lieut. William Boyd and one private, prisoners, and brought them to
Little Beard's Town, where they were soon after put to death in the most
shocking and cruel manner. Little Beard, in this, as in all other scenes
of cruelty that happened at his town, was master of ceremonies, and
principal actor. Poor Boyd was stripped of his clothing, and then tied
to a sapling, where the Indians menaced his life by throwing their
tomahawks at the tree, directly over his head, brandishing their
scalping knives around him in the most frightful manner, and
accompanying their ceremonies with terrific shouts of joy. Having
punished him sufficiently in this way, they made a small opening in his
abdomen, took out an intestine, which they tied to the sapling, and then
unbound him from the tree, and drove him round it till he had drawn out
the whole of his intestines. He was then beheaded, his head was stuck
upon a pole, and his body left on the ground unburied.
Thus ended the life of poor William Boyd, who, it was said, had every
appearance of being an active and enterprizing officer, of the first
talents. The other prisoner was (if I remember distinctly) only beheaded
and left near Boyd.
This tragedy being finished, our Indians again held a short council
on the expediency of giving Sullivan battle, if he should continue to
advance, and finally came to the conclusion that they were not strong
enough to drive him, nor to prevent his taking possession of their
fields: but that if it was possible they would escape with their own
lives, preserve their families, and leave their possessions to be
overrun by the invading army.
The women and children were then sent on still further towards Buffalo,
to a large creek that was called by the Indians Catawba, accompanied by
a part of the Indians, while the remainder secreted themselves in the
woods back of Beard's Town, to watch the movements of the army.
At that time I had three children who went with me on foot, one who rode
on horse back, and one whom I carried on my back.
Our corn was good that year; a part of which we had gathered and secured
for winter.
In one or two days after the skirmish at Connissius lake, Sullivan and
his army arrived at Genesee river, where they destroyed every article of
the food kind that they could lay their hands on. A pan of our corn they
burnt, and threw the remainder into the river. They burnt our houses,
killed what few cattle and horses they could find, destroyed our fruit
trees, and left nothing but the bare soil and timber. But the Indians
had eloped and were not to be found.
Having crossed and recrossed the river, and finished the work of
destruction, the army marched off to the east. Our Indians saw them
move off, but suspecting that it was Sullivan's intention to watch our
return, and then to take us by surprize, resolved that the main body of
our tribe should hunt where we then were, till Sullivan had gone so far
that there would be no danger of his returning to molest us.
This being agreed to, we hunted continually till the Indians concluded
that there could be no risk in our once more taking possession of our
lands. Accordingly we all returned; but what were our feelings when we
found that there was not a mouthful of any kind of sustenance left, not
even enough to keep a child one day from perishing with hunger.
The weather by this time had become cold and stormy; and as we were
destitute of houses and food too, I immediately resolved to take my
children and look out for myself, without delay. With this intention I
took two of my little ones on my back, bade the other three follow,
and the same night arrived on the Gardow flats, where I have ever since
resided.
At that time, two negroes, who had run away from their masters sometime
before, were the only inhabitants of those flats. They lived in a small
cabin and had planted and raised a large field of corn, which they had
not yet harvested. As they were in want of help to secure their crop, I
hired to them to husk corn till the whole was harvested.
I have laughed a thousand times to myself when I have thought of the
good old negro, who hired me, who fearing that I should get taken or
injured by the Indians, stood by me constantly when I was husking, with
a loaded gun in his hand, in order to keep off the enemy, and thereby
lost as much labor of his own as he received from me, by paying good
wages. I, however, was not displeased with his attention; for I knew
that I should need all the corn that I could earn, even if I should husk
the whole. I husked enough for them, to gain for myself, at every tenth
string, one hundred strings of ears, which were equal to twenty-five
bushels of shelled corn. This seasonable supply made my family
comfortable for samp and cakes through the succeeding winter, which was
the most severe that I have witnessed since my remembrance. The snow
fell about five feet deep, and remained so for a long time, and the
weather was extremely cold; so much so indeed, that almost all the game
upon which the Indians depended for subsistence, perished, and reduced
them almost to a state of starvation through that and three or four
succeeding years. When the snow melted in the spring, deer were found
dead upon the ground in vast numbers; and other animals, of every
description, perished from the cold also, and were found dead, in
multitudes. Many of our people barely escaped with their lives, and some
actually died of hunger and freezing.
But to return from this digression: Having been completely routed at
Little Beard's Town, deprived of a house, and without the means of
building one in season, after I had finished my husking, and having
found from the short acquaintance which I had had with the negroes, that
they were kind and friendly, I concluded, at their request, to take up
my residence with them for a while in their cabin, till I should be able
to provide a hut for myself. I lived more comfortable than I expected to
through the winter, and the next season made a shelter for myself.
The negroes continued on my flats two or three years after this, and
then left them for a place that they expected would suit them much
better. But as that land became my own in a few years, by virtue of a
deed from the Chiefs of the Six Nations, I have lived there from that to
the present time.
My flats were cleared before I saw them; and it was the opinion of the
oldest Indians that were at Genishau, at the time that I first went
there, that all the flats on the Genesee river were improved before any
of the Indian tribes ever saw them. I well remember that soon after I
went to Little Beard's Town, the banks of Fall-Brook were washed off,
which left a large number of human bones uncovered. The Indians then
said that those were not the bones of Indians, because they had never
heard of any of their dead being buried there; but that they were the
bones of a race of men who a great many moons before, cleared that land
and lived on the flats.
The next summer after Sullivan's campaign, our Indians, highly incensed
at the whites for the treatment they had received, and the sufferings
which they had consequently endured, determined to obtain some redress
by destroying their frontier settlements. Corn Planter, otherwise called
John O'Bail, led the Indians, and an officer by the name of Johnston
commanded the British in the expedition. The force was large, and so
strongly bent upon revenge and vengeance, that seemingly nothing could
avert its march, nor prevent its depredations. After leaving Genesee
they marched directly to some of the head waters of the Susquehannah
river, and Schoharie Creek, went down that creek to the Mohawk river,
thence up that river to Fort Stanwix, and from thence came home. In
their route they burnt a number of places; destroyed all the cattle and
other property that fell in their way; killed a number of white people,
and brought home a few prisoners.
In that expedition, when they came to Fort Plain, on the Mohawk river,
Corn Planter and a party of his Indians took old John O'Bail, a white
man, and made him a prisoner. Old John O'Bail, in his younger days had
frequently passed through the Indian settlements that lay between
the Hudson and Fort Niagara, and in some of his excursions had become
enamored with a squaw, by whom he had a son that was called Corn
Planter.
Corn Planter, was a chief of considerable eminence; and having been
informed of his parentage and of the place of his father's residence,
took the old man at this time, in order that he might make an
introduction leisurely, and become acquainted with a man to whom, though
a stranger, he was satisfied that he owed his existence.
After he had taken the old man, his father, he led him as a prisoner ten
or twelve miles up the river, and then stepped before him, faced about,
and addressed him in the following terms:--
"My name is John O'Bail, commonly called Corn Planter. I am your son!
you are my father! You are now my prisoner, and subject to the customs
of Indian warfare: but you shall not be harmed; you need not fear. I am
a warrior! Many are the scalps which I have taken! Many prisoners I have
tortured to death! I am your son! I am a warrior! I was anxious to see
you, and to greet you in friendship. I went to your cabin and took you
by force! But your life shall be spared. Indians love their friends and
their kindred, and treat them with kindness. If now you choose to follow
the fortune of your yellow son, and to live with our people, I will
cherish your old age with plenty of venison, and you shall live easy:
But if it is your choice to return to your fields and live with your
white children, I will send a party of my trusty young men to conduct
you back in safety. I respect you, my father; you have been friendly to
Indians, and they are your friends."
Old John chose to return. Corn Planter, as good as his word, ordered an
escort to attend him home, which they did with the greatest care.
Amongst the prisoners that were brought to Genesee, was William Newkirk,
a man by the name of Price, and two negroes.
Price lived a while with Little Beard, and afterwards with Jack Berry,
an Indian. When he left Jack Berry he went to Niagara, where he now
resides.
Newkirk was brought to Beard's Town, and lived with Little Beard and at
Fort Niagara about one year, and then enlisted under Butler, and went
with him on an expedition to the Monongahela.