THE POT BOILS
Sir William died on the 24th of June in the year 1774; which was the
twentieth year of my life.
On the day after he was buried in Saint John's Church in Johnstown,
which he had built, I left the Hall for Fonda's Bush, which was a
wilderness and which lay some nine miles distant in the Mohawk country,
along the little river called Kennyetto.
I speak of Fonda's Bush as a wilderness; but it was not entirely so,
because already old Henry Stoner, the trapper who wore two gold rings in
his ears, had built him a house near the Kennyetto and had taken up his
abode there with his stalwart and handsome sons, Nicholas and John, and
a little daughter, Barbara.
Besides this family, who were the pioneers in that vast forest where the
three patents[2] met, others now began settling upon the pretty little
river in the wilderness, which made a thousand and most amazing windings
through the Bush of Major Fonda.
[Footnote 2: The Three Patents were Sacandaga, Kayaderosseras, and
Stones.]
There came, now, to the Kennyetto, the family of one De Silver; also the
numerous families of John Homan, and Elias Cady; then the Salisburys,
Putnams, Bowmans, and Helmers arrived. And Benjamin De Luysnes followed
with Joseph Scott where the Frenchman, De Golyer, had built a house and
a mill on the trout brook north of us. There was also a dour Scotchman
come thither--a grim and decent man with long, thin shanks under his
kilts, who roved the Bush like a weird and presently went away again.
But before he took himself elsewhere he marked some gigantic trees with
his axe and tied a rag of tartan to a branch.
And, "Fonda's Bush is no name," quoth he. "Where a McIntyre sets his
mark he returns to set his foot. And where he sets foot shall be called
Broadalbin, or I am a great liar!"
And he went away, God knows where. But what he said has become true; for
when again he set his foot among the dead ashes of Fonda's Bush, it
became Broadalbin. And the clans came with him, too; and they peppered
the wilderness with their Scottish names,--Perth, Galway, Scotch Bush,
Scotch Church, Broadalbin,--but my memory runs too fast, like a young
hound giving tongue where the scent grows hotter!--for the quarry is not
yet in sight, nor like to be for many a bloody day, alas!----
* * * * *
There was a forest road to the Bush, passable for waggons, and used
sometimes by Sir William when he went a-fishing in the Kennyetto.
It was by this road I travelled thither, well-horsed, and had borrowed
the farm oxen to carry all my worldly goods.
I had clothing, a clock, some books, bedding of my own, and sufficient
pewter.
I had my own rifle, a fowling piece, two pistols, and sufficient
ammunition.
And with these, and, as I say, well horsed, I rode out of Johnstown on a
June morning, all alone, my heart still heavy with grief for Sir
William, and deeply troubled for my country.
For the provinces, now, were slowly kindling, warmed with those pure
flames that purge the human soul; and already the fire had caught and
was burning fiercely in Massachusetts Bay, where John Hancock fed the
flames, daintily, cleverly, with all the circumstance, impudence, and
grace of your veritable macaroni who will not let an inferior outdo him
in a bow, but who is sometimes insolent to kings.
Well, I was for the forest, now, to wrest from a sunless land a mouthful
o' corn to stop the stomach's mutiny.
And if the Northland caught fire some day--well, I was as inflammable as
the next man, who will not suffer violation of house or land or honour.
* * * * *
As Brent-Meester to Sir William, my duties took me everywhere. I knew
old man Stoner, and Nick had become already my warm friend, though I was
now a grown man of more than twenty and he still of boy's age. Yet, in
many ways, he seemed more mature than I.
I think Nick Stoner was the most mischievous lad I ever knew--and
admired. He sometimes said the same of me, though I was not, I think, by
nature, designed for a scapegrace. However, two years in the wilderness
will undermine the grace of saint or sinner in some degree. And if, when
during those two hard years I went to Johnstown for a breath of
civilization--or to Schenectady, or, rarely, to Albany--I frequented a
few good taverns, there was little harm done, and nothing malicious.
True, disputes with Tories sometimes led to blows, and mayhap some
Albany watchman's Dutch noddle needed vinegar to soothe the flamms
drummed upon it by a stout stick or ramrod resembling mine.
True, the humming ale at the Admiral Warren Tavern may sometimes have
made my own young noddle hum, and Nick Stoner's, too; but there came no
harm of it, unless there be harm in bussing a fresh and rosy wench or
two; or singing loudly in the tap-room and timing each catch to the
hammering of our empty leather jacks on long hickory tables wet with
malt.
But why so sad, brother Broadbrim? Youth is not to be denied. No! And
youth that sets its sinews against an iron wilderness to conquer
it,--youth that wields its puny axe against giant trees,--youth that
pulls with the oxen to uproot enormous stumps so that when the sun is
let in there will be a soil to grow corn enough to defy
starvation,--youth that toils from sun-up to dark, hewing, burning,
sawing, delving, plowing, harrowing day after day, month after month,
pausing only to kill the wild meat craved or snatch a fish from some
forest fount,--such youth cannot be decently denied, brother Broadbrim!
But if Nick and I were truly as graceless as some stiff-necked folk
pretended, always there was laughter in our scrapes, even when hot blood
boiled at the Admiral Warren, and Tory and Rebel drummed one another's
hides to the outrage of law and order and the mortification of His
Majesty's magistrates in County Tryon.
Even in Fonda's Bush the universal fire had begun to smoulder; the names
Rebel and Tory were whispered; the families of Philip Helmer and Elias
Cady talked very loudly of the King and of Sir John, and how a hempen
rope was the fittest cravat for such Boston men as bragged too freely.
But what most of all was in my thoughts, as I swung my axe there in the
immemorial twilight of the woods, concerned the Indians of the great
Iroquois Confederacy.
What would these savages do when the storm broke? What would happen to
this frontier? What would happen to the solitary settlers, to such
hamlets as Fonda's Bush, to Johnstown, to Schenectady--nay, to Albany
itself?
Sir William was no more. Guy Johnson had become his Majesty's
Superintendent for Indian affairs. He was most violently a King's man--a
member of the most important family in all the Northland, and master of
six separate nations of savages, which formed the Iroquois Confederacy.
What would Guy Johnson do with the warriors of these six nations that
bordered our New York frontier?
Always these questions were seething in my mind as I swung my axe or
plowed or harrowed. I thought about them as I sat at eventide by the
door of my new log house. I considered them as I lay abed, watching the
moonlight crawl across the puncheon floor.
* * * * *
As Brent-Meester to Sir William, I knew Indians, and how to conduct when
I encountered them in the forest, in their own castles, or when they
visited the Hall.
I had no love for them and no dislike, but treated them always with the
consideration due from one white man to another.
I was not conscious of making any friends among them, nor of making any
enemies either. To me they were a natural part of the wilderness, like
the trees, rivers, hills, and wild game, belonging there and not
wantonly to be molested.
Others thought differently; trappers, forest runners, coureurs-du-bois
often hated them, and lost no opportunity to display their animosity or
to do them a harm.
But it was not in me to feel that way toward any living creature whom
God had fashioned in His own image if not in His own colour. And who is
so sure, even concerning the complexion of the Most High?
Also, Sir William's kindly example affected my sentiments toward these
red men of the forest. I learned enough of their language to suit my
requirements; I was courteous to their men, young and old; and
considerate toward their women. Otherwise, I remained indifferent.
* * * * *
Now, during these first two years of my life in Fonda's Bush, events in
the outer world were piling higher than those black thunder-clouds that
roll up behind the Mayfield hills and climb toward mid-heaven. Already
the dull glare of lightning lit them redly, though the thunder was, as
yet, inaudible.
In April of my first year in Fonda's Bush a runner came to the Kennyetto
with the news of Lexington, and carried it up and down the wilderness
from the great Vlaie and Maxon Ridge to Frenchman's Creek and Fonda's
Bush.
This news came to us just as we learned that our Continental Congress
was about to reassemble; and it left our settlement very still and
sober, and a loaded rifle within reach of every man who went grimly
about his spring plowing.
But the news of open rebellion in Massachusetts Bay madded our Tory
gentry of County Tryon; and they became further so enraged when the
Continental Congress met that they contrived a counter demonstration,
and, indeed, seized upon a pretty opportunity to carry it with a high
hand.
For there was a Court holden in Johnstown, and a great concourse of
Tryon loyalists; and our Tory hatch-mischiefs did by arts and guile and
persuasions obtain signatures from the majority of the Grand Jurors and
the County Magistracy.
Which, when known and flaunted in the faces of the plainer folk of Tryon
County, presently produced in all that slow, deep anger with which it is
not well to trifle--neither safe for kings nor lesser fry.
In the five districts, committees were appointed to discuss what was to
be the attitude of our own people and to erect a liberty pole in every
hamlet.
The Mohawk district began this business, which, I think, was truly the
beginning of the Revolution in the great Province of New York. The
Canajoharie district, the Palatine, the Flatts, the Kingsland followed.
And, at the Mohawk district meeting, who should arrive but Sir John,
unannounced, uninvited; and with him the entire company of Tory
big-wigs--Colonels Claus, Guy Johnson, and John Butler, and a heavily
armed escort from the Hall.
Then Guy Johnson climbed up onto a high stoop and began to harangue our
unarmed people, warning them of offending Majesty, abusing them for
dolts and knaves and traitors to their King, until Jacob Sammons, unable
to stomach such abuse, shook his fist at the Intendant. And, said he:
"Guy Johnson, you are a liar and a villain! You may go to hell, sir, and
take your Indians, too!"
But Guy Johnson took him by the throat and called him a damned villain
in return. Then the armed guard came at Sammons and knocked him down
with their pistol-butts, and a servant of Sir John sat astride his body
and beat him.
There was a vast uproar then; but our people were unarmed, and presently
took Sammons and went off.
But, as they left the street, many of them called out to Sir John that
it were best for him to fortify his Baronial Hall, because the day drew
near when he would be more in need of swivel guns than of
congratulations from his Royal Master.
Sure, now, the fire blazing so prettily in Boston was already running
north along the Hudson; and Tryon had begun to smoke.
Now there was, in County Tryon, a number of militia regiments of which,
when brigaded, Sir William had been our General.
Guy Johnson, also, was Colonel of the Mohawk regiment. But the Mohawk
regiment had naturally split in two.
Nevertheless he paraded the Tory remainder of it, doubtless with the
intention of awing the entire county.
It did awe us who were unorganized, had no powder, and whose messengers
to Albany in quest of ammunition were now stopped and searched by Sir
John's men.
For the Baronet, also, seemed alarmed; and, with his battalion of
Highlanders, his Tory militia, his swivels, and his armed retainers,
could muster five hundred men and no mean artillery to hold the Hall if
threatened.
But this is not what really troubled the plain people of Tryon. Guy
Johnson controlled thousands of savage Iroquois. Their war chief was Sir
William's brother-in-law, brother to the dark Lady Johnson, Joseph
Brant, called Thayendanegea,--the greatest Mohawk who ever
lived,--perhaps the greatest of all Iroquois. And I think that Hiawatha
alone was greater in North America.
Brave, witty, intelligent, intellectual, having a very genius for war
and stratagems, educated like any gentleman of the day and having served
Sir William as secretary, Brant, in the conventional garments of
civilization, presented a charming and perfectly agreeable appearance.
Accustomed to the society of Sir William's drawing room, this Canienga
Chief was utterly conversant with polite usage, and entirely qualified
to maintain any conversation addressed to him. Always he had been made
much of by ladies--always, when it did not too greatly weary him, was he
the centre of batteries of bright eyes and the object of gayest
solicitation amid those respectable gatherings for which, in Sir
William's day, the Hall was so justly celebrated.
That was the modest and civil student and gentleman, Joseph Brant.
But in the forest he was a painted spectre; in battle a flame! He was a
war chief: he never became Royaneh;[3] but he possessed the wisdom of
Hendrik, the eloquence of Red Jacket, the terrific energy of Hiakatoo.
[Footnote 3: Sachem: the Canienga term.]
We, of Tryon, were aware of all these things. Our ears were listening
for the dread wolf cry of the Iroquois in their paint; our eyes were
turned in dumb expectation toward our Provincial Congress of New York;
toward our dear General Schuyler in Albany; toward the Continental
Congress now in solemn session; toward our new and distant hope shining
clearer, brighter as each day ended--His Excellency the Virginian.
How long were Sir John and his people to be left here in County Tryon to
terrorize all friends to liberty,--to fortify Johnstown, to stop us
about our business on the King's highway, to intrigue with the Mohawks,
the Oneidas, the Cayugas, the Onondagas, the Senecas, the Tuscaroras?
Guy Johnson tampered with the River Indians at Poughkeepsie, and we knew
it. He sent belts to the Shawanese, to the Wyandottes, to the Mohicans.
We knew it. He met the Delaware Sachems at a mongrel fire--God knows
where and by what authority, for the Federal Council never gave it!--and
we stopped one of his runners in the Bush with his pouch full o' belts
and strings; and we took every inch of wampum without leave of Sir John,
and bade the runner tell him what we did.
We wrote to Albany; Albany made representations to Sir John, and the
Baronet replied that his show of armed force at the Hall was solely for
the reason that he had been warned that the Boston people were laying
plans to invade Tryon and make of him a prisoner.
I think this silly lie was too much for Schuyler, for all now knew that
war must come. Twelve Colonies, in Congress assembled, had announced
that they had rather die as free people than continue to live as slaves.
Very fine indeed! But what was of more interest to us at Fonda's Bush,
this Congress commissioned George Washington as Commander in Chief of a
Colonial Army of 20,000 men, and prepared to raise three millions on
bills of credit _for the prosecution of the war_!
Now, at last, the cleavage had come. Now, at last, Sir John was forced
into the open.
He swore by Almighty God that he had had no hand in intriguing against
the plain people of Tryon: and while he was making this oath, Guy
Johnson was raising the Iroquois against us at Oswego; he was plotting
with Carleton and Haldimand at Montreal; he had arranged for the
departure of Brant with the great bulk of the Mohawk nation, and, with
them, the fighting men of the Iroquois Confederacy. Only the Western
Gate Keepers remained,--the fierce Senecas.
And so, except for a few Tuscaroras, a few lukewarm Onondagas, a few of
the Lenape, and perhaps half--possibly two-thirds of the Oneida nation,
Guy Johnson already had swung the terrible Iroquois to the King.
And now, secretly, the rats began to leave for the North, where, behind
the Canada border, savage hordes were gathering by clans, red and white
alike.
Guy Johnson went on pretense of Indian business; and none dare stop the
Superintendent for Indian affairs on a mission requiring, as he stated,
his personal appearance at Oswego.
But once there he slipped quietly over into Canada; and Brant joined
him.
Colonel Claus sneaked North; old John Butler went in the night with a
horde of Johnstown and Caughnawaga Tories. McDonald followed,
accompanied by some scores of bare-shinned Tory Mc's. Walter Butler
disappeared like a phantom.
But Sir John remained behind his stockade and swivels at the Hall,
vowing and declaring that he meditated no mischief--no, none at all.
Then, in a fracas in Johnstown, that villain sheriff, Alexander White,
fired upon Sammons, and the friends to liberty went to take the
murderous Tory at the jail.
Frey was made sheriff, which infuriated Sir John; but Governor Tryon
deposed him and reappointed White, so the plain people went again to do
him a harm; and he fled the district to the mortification of the
Baronet.
But Sir John's course was nearly at an end: and events in the outer
world set the sands in his cloudy glass running very swiftly. Schuyler
and Montgomery were directing a force of troops against Montreal and
Quebec, and Sir Guy Carleton, Governor General of Canada, was shrieking
for help.
St. John's surrendered, and _the Mohawk Indians began fighting_!
Here was a pretty pickle for Sir John to explain.
Suddenly we had news of the burning of Falmouth.
* * * * *
On a bitter day in early winter, an Express passed through Fonda's Bush
on snow-shoes, calling out a squad of the Mohawk Regiment of District
Militia.
Nick Stoner, Andrew Bowman, Joe Scott, and I answered the summons.
Snow-shoeing was good--a light fall on the crust--and we pulled foot for
the Kingsborough trail, where we met up with a squad from the Palatine
Regiment and another from the Flatts.
But scarce were we in sight of Johnstown steeples when the drums of an
Albany battalion were heard; and we saw, across the snow, their long
brown muskets slanting, and heard their bugle-horn on the Johnstown
road.
* * * * *
I saw nothing of the affair at the Hall, being on guard at St. John's
Church, lower down in the town. But I saw our General Schuyler ride up
the street with his officers; and so knew that all would go well.
All went well enough, they say. For when again the General rode past the
church, I saw waggons under our escort piled with the muskets of the
Highland Battalion, and others heaped high with broad-swords, pistols,
swivels, and pikes. And on Saturday, the twentieth of January, when our
tour of duty ended, and our squads were dismissed, each to its proper
district, all people knew that Sir John Johnson had given his parole of
honor not to take up arms against America; not to communicate with the
Royalists in Canada; not to oppose the friends of liberty at home; nor
to stir from his Baronial Hall to go to Canada or to the sea, but with
liberty to transact such business as might be necessary in other parts
of this colony.
And I, for one, never doubted that a son of the great Sir William would
keep his word and sacred parole of honour.