Sullivan proceeded to the Genesee Valley. Gathtsegwarohare and Little

Beard's Town were destroyed, and on the 14th he crossed the river, and

the army encamped september, 1779 around Genesee, the Indian capital.

Here every thing indicated the presence of civilization. There was not a

wilderness feature in the scene. The rich intervales presented the

appearance of cultivation for many generations, * and the farms, and

orchards, and gardens bespoke a degree of comfort and refinement that

would be creditable to any civilized community. But a terrible doom hung

over the smiling country. The Genesee Castle was destroyed, and the

capital was laid in ashes. "The town" [Genesee], said Sullivan, in his

dispatch to Washington, "contained one hundred and twenty-eight houses,

mostly large and very elegant. It was beautifully situated, almost

encircled with a clear flat, extending a number of miles, over which

extensive fields of corn were waving, together with every kind of

vegetable that could be conceived." Yet the contemplation of this scene

could not stay the destroyer's hand; and over the whole valley and the

surrounding country the troops swept with the besom of desolation. Forty

Indian towns were burned; one hundred and sixty thousand bushels of corn

in the fields and in granaries were destroyed; a vast number of the

finest fruit-trees, ** the product of years of tardy growth, were cut

down; hundreds of gardens covered with edible vegetables were desolated;

the inhabitants were driven into the forests to starve, and were hunted

like wild beasts; their altars were overturned, and their graves

trampled upon by strangers; and a beautiful, well-watered country,

teeming with a prosperous people, and just rising from a wilderness

state, by the aid of cultivation, to a level with the productive regions

of civilization, was desolated and cast back a century within the space

of a fortnight. *** To us, looking upon the scene from a point so

remote, it is difficult to perceive the necessity that called for a

chastisement so cruel and terrible. But that such necessity seemed to

exist we should not doubt, for it was the judicious and benevolent mind

of Washington that conceived and planned the campaign, and ordered its

rigid execution in the manner in which it was accomplished. It awed the

Indians for the moment, but did not crush them. In the reaction they had

greater strength. It kindled the fires of deep hatred, which spread far

among the tribes upon the lakes and in the valley of the Ohio.

Washington, like Demetrius, the son of Antigonus, received from the

savages the name of An-na-ta-kau-les, which signifies _a taker of

towns_, or Town Destroyer. ****

* The race of Indians that then inhabited the Valley of the Genesee had

no knowledge of the earlier cultivators of the soil. They asserted,

according to Mary Jemison, that another race, of which they had no

knowledge, had cultivated the land long before their ancestors came into

the valley; and she saw the disentombment of skeletons much larger than

those of the race she was among.

** Many of the orchards were uncommonly large. One that was destroyed by

the axe contained fifteen hundred trees.

*** Stone says (Life of Brant, ii., 25), "It is apprehended that few of

the present generation are thoroughly aware of the advances which the

Indians, in the wide and beautiful country of the Cayugas and Senecas,

had made in the march of civilization. They had several towns and many

large villages, laid out with a considerable degree of regularity. They

had framed houses, some of them well finished, having chimneys, and

painted. They had broad and productive fields; and, in addition to an

abundance of apples, were the enjoyment of the pear and the more

luscious peach."

**** At a council held in Philadelphia in 1792, Corn Planter, the

distinguished Seneca chief, thus addressed the President: "Father--The

voice of the Seneca nation speaks to you, the great counselor, in whose

heart the wise men of all the thirteen fires have placed their wisdom.

It may be very small in your cars, and, therefore, we entreat you to

hearken with attention, for we are about to speak to you of things which

to us are very great. When your army entered the country of the Six

Nations, we called you The Town Destroyer; and to this day, when that

name is heard, our women look behind them and turn pale, and our

children cling close to the necks of their mothers. Our counselors and

warriors are men, and can not be afraid; but their hearts are grieved

with the fears of our women and children, and desire that it may be

buried so deep that it may be heard no more." Corn Planter was one of

the earliest lecturers upon temperance in this country. While speaking

upon this subject in 1822, he said, "The Great Spirit first made the

world, next the flying animals, and formed all things good and

prosperous. He is immortal and everlasting. Alter finishing the flying

animals, he came down to earth and there stood. Then he made different

kinds of trees, and woods of all sorts, and people of every kind. He

made the spring and other seasons, and the weather suitable for

planting. These he did make. But stills to make whisky to give to the

Indians he did not make.... The Great Spirit has ordered me to stop

drinking, and he wishes me to inform the people that they should quit

drinking intoxicating drinks."

Return of the invading Army.--A Celebration.--Arrival of the Expedition

at Wyoming.--The Oneidas driven from Home.

278From causes not clearly understood, Sullivan did not extend his

victorious march to Niagara, the head-quarters of the Tories and

Indians, the breaking up of which would have been far more efficient in

bringing repose to the white settlements than the achievements just

accomplished; but, having desolated the Genesee Valley, he crossed the

river and re-September 20, 1779 traced his steps. When the army

recrossed the outlet of Seneca Lake, Colonel Zebulon Butler, of Wyoming,

was sent with a detachment of five hundred men, to pass round the foot

of Cayuga Lake and destroy the Indian towns on its eastern shore.

Lieutenant Dearborn was dispatched upon similar service along its

western shore; and both corps, having accomplished their mission, joined

the main body on the Chemung. * September 28. Butler had burned three

towns and the capital of the Cayugas, and Dearborn had destroyed six

towns and a great quantity of grain and fruit-trees. The army reached

Tioga, its starting-place, on the 3d of October, where it was joined by

the garrison left in charge of Fort Sullivan. Destroying that stockade,

they took up their line of march on the 4th for Wyoming, where they

arrived on the 7th, and pitched their tents on the former campground

near Wilkesbarre. The next day a large portion of the troops left for

Easton, on the Delaware, at which place they were dismissed. Thus ended

a campaign before which we would gladly draw the vail of forgetfulness.

Although beaten back into the wilderness, and their beautiful country

laid waste, the Indians were not conquered, and in the spring of the

following year Brant and some of his followers were again upon the war-

path. During the winter the threat of Sir Frederic Haldimand against the

Oneidas was executed. Their castle, church, and villages were destroyed,

and the inhabitants were driven down upon the white settlements for

protection. They collected together near Schenectady, where they

remained until after the war. ** These, too, were particular objects for

the vengeance of the hostile savages. They regarded the Oneidas as

double traitors, and determined to punish them accordingly, should an

opportunity offer to do so.

In April, in connection with a band of Tories, the savages destroyed

Harpersfield, and then marched to the attack of the Upper Schoharie

Fort. On their way they captured Captain Alexander Harper and a small

company who were with him, engaged in making maple sugar. Three of the

yeomanry were killed, and ten made prisoners and taken to Niagara. With

difficulty Brant kept his Indians from murdering them by the way. At

Niagara Harper met with his niece, the daughter of Mr. Moore, of Cherry

Valley, whose family, with that of Colonel Campbell, was carried into

captivity in 1778. She had married a British officer named Powell, and

through his exertions Captain Harper and his associates were kindly

treated at Niagara. But they were doomed to a long absence from home,

for they were not released until the peace in 1783 opened all the prison

doors. *** The borders of Wyoming, and the Dutch settlements along the

western frontiers of the

* Lieutenant-colonel Hubley, an officer of the Pennsylvania line, has

left an interesting account of this expedition in his Journal. He says

that, on the 25th of September, the army held a celebration in testimony

of their pleasure "in consequence of the accession of the King of Spain

to the American alliance, and the generous proceedings of Congress in

augmenting the subsistence of the officers and men." General Sullivan

ordered five of his fattest bullocks to be slaughtered, one for the

officers of each brigade. In the evening, after the discharge of

thirteen cannons, the whole army performed a feu de joie. Thirteen

appropriate toasts were drunk. The last was as follows: "May the enemies

of America be metamorphosed into pack horses, and sent on a western

expedition against the Indians."

** A remnant of this tribe now occupies land in the vicinity of Rome,

Oneida county, New York.

*** Among the Tory captors of Harper and his associates was a brute

named Becraft, who boasted of having assisted in the murder of the

Vrooman family in Schoharie. He had the audacity to return to Schoharie

after the war. The returned prisoners, who had heard his boast, and

others, informed of his presence, caught him, stripped him naked, and,

tying him to a tree, gave him a severe castigation with hickory whips.

They enumerated his several crimes, and then gave him a goodly number of

stripes for each. On releasing him, they charged him never to come to

the county again. Of course he did not.

Johnson's Incursions into the Schoharie Country.--Attack on the

Schoharie Forts.--Boldness of Murphy.

279present Ulster and Orange comities, suffered from scalping parties

during the spring and summer of 1780. We have already noticed the

destruction of the settlement and mills at Little Falls, on the Mohawk;

also the devastation of the Canajoharie settlements and the hamlet at

Fort Plain, which occurred in August of that year. The irruption of Sir

John Johnson into the valley in the neighborhood of Johnstown will be

considered when writing of my visit to Johnson Hall.

1780 During the autumn an extensive expedition was planned against the

Mohawk and Schoharie settlements. The Indians were thirsting for revenge

for the wrongs and misery inflicted by Sullivan. The leaders were Sir

John Johnson, Brant, and the famous half-breed Seneca warrior, Corn

Planter. * The Indians rendezvoused at Tioga Point, and, ascending the

Susquehanna, formed a junction at Unadilla with Sir John Johnson and his

forces, which consisted of three companies of his Greens, one company of

German Yagers, two hundred of Butler's Rangers, one company of British

regulars, under Captain Duncan, and a number of Mohawks. They came from

Montreal by way of Oswego, bringing with them two small mortars, a brass

three pounder, and a piece called a _grasshopper_.

The plan agreed upon by the invaders was, to proceed along the Charlotte

River, the east branch of the Susquehanna, to its source, thence across

to the head of the Schoharie, sweep all the settlements along its course

to its junction with the Mohawk, and then devastate that beautiful

valley down to Schenectady. They began their march at nightfall, and

before morning they had passed the Upper Fort unobserved, and October 15

were applying the torch to dwellings near the Middle Fort (Middleburgh).

At daylight signal guns at the Upper Fort announced the discovery of the

enemy there, but it was too late to save the property, already in

flames. The proceeds of a bountiful harvest were in the barns, and

stacks of hay and grain were abundant.

Major Woolsey, who seems to have been a poltroon, ** was the commander

of the garrison at the Middle Fort, and sent out a detachment against

the foe, under Lieutenant Spencer, who was repulsed, but returned to the

fort without losing a man. That post was now formally invested by the

enemy, and Sir John Johnson sent a flag, with a summons to surrender.

The bearer was fired upon by Murphy, the rifleman already mentioned, but

was unhurt; and, on his return to the camp, Johnson commenced a siege.

The feeble garrison had but little ammunition, while the enemy, though

well supplied, did very little execution with his own. The siege was a

singular, and even ridiculous, military display. While a party of the

besiegers were awkwardly trying to cast bomb-shells into the apology for

a fort, the rest were valiantly attacking deserted houses and stacks of

grain. Failing to make any impression, Sir John sent another flag toward

noon. Murphy again fired upon the bearer, and again missed his mark.

Woolsey had ordered him to desist, but Murphy plainly told his

commanding officer that he was a coward, and meant to surrender the

fort; and excused his breach of the rules of war in firing upon a flag

by the plea that the enemy, in all his conduct, paid no regard whatever

to military courtesy.

The siege continued, and again a flag was sent, and was fired upon a

third time by Murphy. The officers and regulars in the fort had menaced

him with death if he should again thus violate the rules of war. But the

militia, among whom he was a great favorite, rallied around him, and

Woolsey and his men were set at defiance. At length Johnson, suspecting

the garrison to be much stronger than it really was, or fearing re-

enforcements might arrive from Albany, abandoned the siege, and marched

rapidly down the valley, destroying

* Corn Planter now first became conspicuous. According to Stone, this

chief, and the afterward more famous Red Jacket, were among the Indians

at the battle of Chemung. They became rivals, and Red Jacket finally

supplanted Corn Planter. Brant always despised Red Jacket, for he

declared him to have acted the part of a coward during Sullivan's

expedition, in trying to get the chiefs to sue for peace upon the most

ignominious terms.

** Campbell, in his Annals, says, "Woolsey's presence of mind forsook

him in the hour of danger. He concealed himself at first with the women

and children in the house, and, when driven out by the ridicule of his

new associates, he crawled around the intrenchments on his hands and

knees, amid the jeers and bravos of the militia, who felt their courage

revive as their laughter was excited by the cowardice of the major."

Johnson's March to Fort Hunter.--Destruction of Property.--Expedition of

General Van Rensselaer.--Death of Colonel Brown.

280with fire every thing combustible in his way. He attacked the Lower

Fort, but, being repulsed by a shower of grape-shot and musket-balls

from the garrison in the church, he continued his march down the river

to Fort Hunter, * at its junction with the Mohawk. Not a house, barn, or

grain-stack, known to belong to a Whig, was left standing, and it was

estimated that one hundred thousand bushels of grain were destroyed by

the invaders in that one day's march. The houses and other property of

the Tories were spared, but the exasperated Whigs set them on fire as

soon as the enemy had gone, and all shared a common fate. Only two

persons in the besieged fort were killed, but about one hundred of the

inhabitants were murdered during the day. The Vroomans, a numerous

family in Schoharie, suffered much, many of them being among the slain.

October, 1780 Sir John remained at Fort Hunter on the 17th, and

destroyed every thing belonging to the Whigs in the neighborhood. On the

18th he began a devastating march up the Mohawk Valley. Caughnawaga was

laid in ashes, and every dwelling on both sides of the river, as far up

as Fort Plain, was destroyed. ** On the night of the 18th Sir John

encamped with his forces near "The Nose," and the following morning he

crossed the Mohawk at Keder's Rifts, *** sending a detachment of fifty

men to attack a small stockade called Fort Paris, in Stone Arabia, about

three miles north of the river. The main body kept in motion at the same

time, and continued the work of destruction along the wide line of its

march.

As soon as the irruption of Johnson into the Schoharie settlement was

made known at Albany, Governor George Clinton, accompanied by General

Robert Van Rensselaer, of Claverack, at the head of a strong body of

militia, marched to the succor of the people in Tryon county. They

arrived at Caughnawaga on the 18th, while it was yet in flames; and,

ascertaining that Fort Paris was to be attacked the next day, Van

Rensselaer dispatched orders to Colonel Brown, then stationed there, to

march out and meet the enemy. Brown promptly obeyed, and near a ruined

military work, called Fort Keyser, confronted the invaders. A sharp

action ensued, and the overwhelming numbers of the enemy bore down the

gallant little band of Brown, who, with forty of his soldiers, was

slain. **** The remainder of his troops found safety in flight.

* Fort Hunter was built at the mouth of the Schoharie Creek during the

French-and Indian war. It inclosed an edifice called Queen Anne's

Chapel, to which a parsonage, built of stone, was attached. The old fort

was torn down at the commencement of the Revolution, but it was

afterward partially restored and often garrisoned. The chapel was

demolished in 1820, to make room for the Erie Canal. The parsonage is

still standing in the town of Florida, half a mile below the Schoharie,

and a few rods south of the canal.

** Among the many sufferers at this time was Major Jelles Fonda, from

whom the present village of Fonda, near old Caughnawaga, derives its

name. He was absent from home at the time, attending a meeting of the

state Legislature, of which he was a member, then in session at

Poughkeepsie, Dutchess county. His mansion was at a place called "The

Nose," in the town of Palatine. His wife escaped under cover of a thick

fog, and on foot made her way to Schenectady. The house was burned,

together with property valued at $60,000.--Antiquarian Researches, by

Giles F. Yates, Esq.

*** Rifts are short, shallow rapids, the frequent occurrence of which in

the Mohawk River makes navigation of that stream, even with bateaux,

quite difficult.

**** Colonel Brown was a distinguished soldier in former campaigns of

the Revolution in the Northern Department, as the reader has already

noticed, he was born in Sandersfield, Berkshire county, Massachusetts,

October 19th, 1744. He graduated at Yale College in 1771, and studied

law with Oliver Arnold (a cousin of the traitor), at Providence, Rhode

Island. He commenced practice at Caughnawaga, New York, and was

appointed king's attorney. He soon went to Pittsfield, Massachusetts,

where he became active in the patriot cause. He was chosen by the State

Committee of Correspondence, in 1774, to go to Canada to excite

rebellion, in which perilous duty he had many adventures. He was elected

to Congress in 1775, but before the meeting of that body he had joined

the expedition under Allen and Arnold against Ticonderoga. He assisted

in the capture of Fort Chambly in the autumn of that year, and planned

the attack on Montreal, which resulted so disastrously to Colonel Ethan

Allen. He was at the storming of Quebec at the close of the year. The

following year Congress gave him the commission of lieutenant colonel.

In 1777 he conducted the expedition that attacked Ticonderoga and other

posts in its vicinity, released one hundred American prisoners at Lake

George, and captured quite a large quantity of provisions and stores

belonging to the enemy. Soon after this he retired from the service on

account of his detestation of Arnold. Three years before the latter

became a traitor, Brown published a hand-bill, in which he denounced him

as an avaricious and unprincipled man, charged him with "selling many a

life for gain," and predicted that he would prove a traitor, in the

remarkable words with which the hand-bill closed: "Money is this man's

God, and to get enough of it he would sacrifice his country!" This was

published at Albany in the winter of 1776-7, while Arnold was quartered

there. Arnold was greatly excited when told of it, called Brown a

scoundrel, and declared that he would kick him whensoever and

wheresoever they might meet. This declaration was communicated to Brown.

The next day, Brown, by invitation, went to a dinner where he would meet

Arnold. The latter was standing with his back to the fire when the

former entered the door, and he and Brown thus met each other face to

face. Brown walked boldly up to Arnold, and, looking him sternly in the

face, said, "I understand, sir, that you have said you would kick me. I

now present myself to give you an opportunity to put your threat into

execution." Arnold made no reply. Brown then said, "Sir, you are a dirty

scoundrel." Arnold was still silent, and Brown left the room, after

apologizing to the gentlemen present for his intrusion. *

* Colonel Brown, after he left the army, was occasionally employed in

the Massachusetts service. In the fall of 1780, with many of the

Berkshire militia, he marched up the Mohawk Valley, to aet as

circumstances might require. He was slain at Stone Arabia on his birth-

day (October 19th, 1780), nged 35 years. On his way to the Mohawk

country, he called upon Ann Lee, the founder of the sect of Shaking

Quakers in this country, then established near Albany. He assured her,

by way of pleasantry, that on his return he should join her society. A

fortnight after his death two members of the society waited upon his

widow, told her that her husband, in spirit, had joined "Mother Ann,"

and that he had given express orders for her to become a member. She was

not to be duped, and bade them begone. On the anniversary of Colonel

Brown's death (as well as of his birth), in 1836, a monument was reared

to his memory by his son, the late Henry Brown, Esq., of Berkshire,

Massachusetts, near the place where he fell, in the town of Palatine.

Upon the monument is the following inscription: In memory of Colonel

John Brown, who was killed in battle on the 19th day of October, 1780,

at Palatine, in the county of Montgomery.

Pursuit of Johnson by Van Rensselaer.--Inaction of the latter.--Battle

of Klock's Field.--Capture of some Tories.

281Sir John now dispersed his forces in small bands to the distance of

five or six miles in each direction, to pillage the county. He desolated

Stone Arabia, and, proceeding to a place called Kloek's Field, halted to

rest. General Van Rensselaer, with a considerable force, was in close

pursuit. He had been joined by Captain M'Kean, with a corps of

volunteers, and a strong body of Oneida warriors, led by their principal

chief, Louis Atyataronghta, whom Congress had commissioned a colonel. *

His whole force was now fifteen hundred strong. Van Rensselaer's pursuit

was on the south side of the Mohawk, while Johnson was ravaging the

country on the north side. Johnson took care to guard the ford while his

halting army was resting, and the pursuers were there kept at bay. The

tardy movements of Van Rensselaer, who, instead of pushing across to

attack the wearied troops of the invader, _rode off to Fort Plain to

dine with Governor Clinton_, were justly censured; and the Oneida chief

even denounced him as a Tory. This accusation, and the remonstrances of

some of his officers, quickened his movements, and toward evening his

forces crossed the river and were arrayed for battle. The whites of the

enemy were upon a small plain partially guarded by a bend in the river,

while Brant, with his Indians, occupied, in secret, a thicket of shrub

oaks in the vicinity. The van of the attack was led by the late General

Morgan Lewis, then a colonel. Colonel Dubois commanded the extreme

right, and the left was led by Colonel Cuyler, of Albany. Captain M'Kean

and the Oneidas were near the right. Johnson's right was composed of

regular troops; the center, of his Greens; and his left was the Indian

ambuscade. When the patriots approached, Brant raised the war-whoop, and

in a few moments a general battle ensued. The charge of the Americans

was so impetuous that the enemy soon gave way and fled. Brant was

wounded in the heel, but escaped. Van Rensselaer's troops wished to

pursue the enemy, but it was then twilight, and he would not allow it.

They were ordered to fall back and encamp for the night, a movement

which caused much dissatisfaction. **

* He was a representative of three nations, for in his veins ran the

blood of the French, Indian, and negro

** While some of M'Kean's volunteers were strolling about, waiting for

the main army to cress, they came upon a small block-house, where nine

of the enemy were in custody, having surrendered during the night. On

one of them being asked how he came there, his answer was a sharp

commentary upon the criminal inaction of General Van Rensselaer. "Last

night, after the battle," he said, "we crossed the river; it was dark;

we heard the word 'lay down your arms some of us did so. We were taken,

nine of us, and marched into this little fort by seven militia men. We

formed the rear of three hundred of Johnson's Greens, who were running

promiscuously through and over one another. I thought General Van

Rensselaer's whole army was upon us. Why did you not take us prisoners

yesterday, after Sir John ran off with the Indians and left us? We

wanted to surrender." The man was a Tory of the valley.--See Life of

Brant, ii., 123.

* Stone's Life of Brant, ii., 117.

Pursuit of Johnson and Brant.--Conduct of Van Rensselaer.--Capture of

Vrooman and his Party.--Threatened Invasion.

282Louis and M'Kean did not strictly obey orders, and early in the

morning they started off with their forces in pursuit. Johnson, with the

Indians and Yagers, fled toward Onondaga Lake, where they had left their

boats concealed. His Greens and the Rangers followed. Van Rensselaer and

his whole force pursued them as far as Fort Herkimer, at the German

Flats, and there M'Kean and Louis were ordered to press on in advance

after the fugitives. They struck the trail of Johnson the next morning,

and soon afterward came upon his deserted camp while the fires were yet

burning. Van Rensselaer had promised to push forward to their support;

but, having little confidence in the celerity of his movements, and

fearing an ambuscade, Louis refused to advance any further until assured

that the main body of the Americans was near. The advanced party halted,

and were soon informed by a messenger that Van Rensselaer had actually

abandoned the pursuit, and was then on his return march! It was a

shameful neglect of advantage, for, with proper skill and action,

Johnson might have been captured at the Nose, * before Stone Arabia was

desolated, or else overtaken and secured in his flight.

When Van Rensselaer heard of the concealment of Johnson's boats on the

Onondaga, he dispatched a messenger to Captain Vrooman, then in command

at Fort Schuyler, ordering him to go with a strong detachment and

destroy them. Vrooman instantly obeyed. One of his men feigned sickness

at Oneida, and was left behind. He was there when Johnson arrived, and

informed him of Vrooman's expedition. Brant and a body of Indians

hastened forward, came upon Vrooman and his party while at dinner, and

captured the whole of them without firing a gun. Johnson had no further

impediments in his way, and easily escaped to Canada by way of Oswego,

taking with him Captain Vrooman and his party prisoners, but leaving

behind him a great number of his own men. ** Tryon county enjoyed

comparative repose through the remainder of the autumn and part of the

winter.

In January, 1781, Brant was again upon the war-path in the neighborhood

of Fort Schuyler. The slender barrier of the Oneida nation had been

broken the previous year by driving that people upon the white

settlements, and the warriors from Niagara had an unimpeded way to the

Mohawk Valley. They were separated into small parties, and cut off load

after load of supplies on their way to Forts Plain, Dayton, and

Schuyler. During the month of March two detachments of soldiers near

Fort Schuyler were made prisoners, and the provisions they were guarding

were captured. All the information that could be got respecting the

movements of the enemy strengthened the belief that it was his

determination to make another invasion of the valley, and penetrate, if

possible, as far as the settlement at Schenectady, to destroy the

Oneidas who had found shelter there.

Already the scarcity of provisions at Forts Schuyler and Dayton warned

the people that, if supplies were not speedily obtained, those posts

must be abandoned, and the whole county would thus be left open to the

savages. The distress at Fort Schuyler was greatly increased by a flood

early in May, which overflowed the works and destroyed considerable

provisions. The damage was so great, that it was decided, at a council

of officers, that the strength of May 12, 1781 the garrison was totally

inadequate to make proper repairs. A few days afterward the destruction

of the fort was completed by fire, the work, it was supposed, of an

incendiary. The post was then necessarily abandoned, and the garrison

was marched down to Forts Dayton and Plain.

* The Nose, or Anthony's Nose, as it is sometimes called, is a bluff at

a narrow part of the Mohawk, in the town of Palatine, and derives its

name from the circumstance that its form is something like that of the

human nose. Here a ridge evidently once crossed the valley and kept the

waters in check above, for the effects of the action of running streams

and eddies are very prominent in the rocks. At the upper end of the

plain below are bowlders and large gravel stones, which diminish to sand

at the lower end.

** Campbell's Annals.

Gloomy Prospect in the Mohawk Country.--Patriotism of Colonel Willett.--

His Command of the Tryon County Militia

283At this period every thing combined to cast gloom over the Mohawk

country. Vermont, as we have noticed in a former chapter, had assumed an

equivocal position, amounting almost, in appearance, to a treasonable

rebellion against Congress. General Haldimand, with a large regular

force, was menacing the northern country from his post upon Lake

Champlain; the Johnsons, Butlers, and Brant were laying plans for an

extensive invasion of Tryon county and the settlements near the

Delaware; the forts that served for a defense for the people were weak

from lack of provisions, ammunition, and men; the principal one, the key

to the Mohawk Valley from the west, was destroyed; and, worse than all,

a spirit of discontent and despondency was rife in that quarter, induced

by the inefficiency of Congress in furnishing supplies, and the seeming

hopelessness of the patriot cause. General Schuyler and others expressed

their conviction that, if another invading army should come upon the

settlements during the existing state of things, large numbers of the

people would join the royal standard. The undisciplined militia,

necessarily engaged in farm labor, and often insubordinate, were a weak

reliance, and nothing but an efficient military force, either of paid

levies or soldiers of the regular army, could give confidence and real

protection.

The expectation of such aid was but a feeble ray of hope at the

beginning of the summer, for Washington and the French commander (De

Rochambeau) were concocting plans far more important than the defense of

a single frontier section of the vast extent of the colonies. Governor

Clinton was greatly pained and embarrassed by the gloomy prospect in his

department. In this dilemma, his thoughts turned to Colonel Willett, who

had just been appointed to the command of one of the two regiments

formed by the consolidation of five New York regiments. His name was a

"tower of strength" among the people of the Mohawk Valley, and Clinton

implored him to take command of all the militia levies and state troops

that might be raised for the summer campaigns. He consented, left the

main army, and established his head-quarters at Fort Rensselaer *

(Canajoharie), toward the close of June.

The spirits of the people were revived, although the forces of Willett

consisted of mere fragments of companies hastily collected from the

ruins of the last campaign. "I confess myself," he said, in a letter to

Governor Clinton, "not a little disappointed in having such a trifling

force for such extensive business as I have now on my hands; and, also,

that nothing is done to enable me to avail myself of the militia. The

prospect of a suffering country hurts me. Upon my own account I am not

uneasy. Every thing I can do shall be done; and more can not be looked

for. If it is, the reflection that I have done my duly must fix my

tranquillity." **

While the enemy is threatening invasion and Willett is preparing to

repel him, let us turn from the exciting chronicle, and resume our quiet

journey, in the course of which some of the stirring incidents of the

subsequent strife between the patriots and the enemy, in Tryon county,

will come up in review.

* This was upon the Canajoharie Creek, near the junction of its two

branches, in the town of Root.

** Willett's Narrative.

Changes in the Mohawk Country.--Present Aspect of the Mohawk Valley.--

Fultonville.--Fonda

284

CHAPTER XIII.

The earth all light and loveliness, in summer's golden hours,

Smiles, in her bridal vesture clad, and crown'd with festal flowers;

So radiantly beautiful, so like to heaven above,

We scarce can deem more fair that world of perfect bliss and love.

Anonymous.

Look now abroad--another race has fill'd

These populous borders--wide the wood recedes,

And towns shoot up, and fertile plains are till'd;

The land is full of harvests and green meads;

Streams numberless, that many a fountain feeds,

Shine, disembower'd, and give to sun and breeze

Their virgin waters; the full region leads

New colonies forth, that toward the western seas

Spread, like a rapid flame among the autumnal leaves.

Bryant.

HO that has passed along the Valley of the Mohawk, near the close of a

day in summer, has not been deeply impressed with the singular beauty of

the scene? or who, that has traversed the uplands that skirt this fruit-

ml garden, and stretch away to other valleys, and mingle with the

loftier hills or fertile intervales within the borders of ancient Tryon

county, is not filled with wonder while contemplating the changes that

have been wrought there within a life-span? When the terrible drama

which we have been considering was performed, almost the whole country

was covered with the primeval forest. Clearings were frequent along the

Mohawk River, and cultivation was assiduous in producing the blessings

of abundance and general prosperity; but the southern portions of

Herkimer and Montgomery, and all of Schoharie and Otsego, down to the

remote settlement of Unadilla, were a wilderness, except where a few

thriving settlements were growing upon the water courses. The traveler,

as he views the "field joined to field" in the Mohawk Valley, all

covered with waving grain, green pastures, or bending fruit-trees,

inclosing, in their arms of plenty, elegant mansions; or watches the

vast stream of inland commerce that rolls by upon the Erie Canal; or the

villages of people that almost hourly sweep along its margin after the

vapor steed; or rides over the adjacent hill-country north and south,

enlivened by villages and rich in cultivation, can hardly realize the

fact that here, seventy years ago, the wild Indian was joint possessor

of the soil with the hardy settlers, and that the light of civilization

was as scattered and feeble, and for a while as evanescent and fleeting

in these broad solitudes, as is the sparkle of the fire-fly on a summer

evening. Yet such is the wonderful truth; and as I passed down the canal

at the close of the day, from Fort Plain to Fultonville, surrounded with

the activity, opulence, and beauty of the Mohawk Valley, I could not,

while contrasting this peacefulness and progress with the discord and

social inertia of other lands, repress the feelings of the Pharisee.

Fultonville is sixteen miles below Fort Plain, and it was long after

dark when I arrived August 24, 1848 there. Early on the following

morning I procured a conveyance to visit old Caughnawaga and Johnstown,

north of the Mohawk. A gentleman of leisure and intelligence, residing

at Fultonville, kindly offered to accompany me, and his familiarity with

the history and localities of the neighborhood, and freedom of

communication, made my morning's ride pleasant and profitable.

Fultonville is upon the canal, and may be called the _port_ of the

village of Fonda, whieh lies upon the rail-road, on the northern verge

of the valley.

Caughnawaga.--John Butler's Residence.--Johnstown.--An Octogenarian.--

Biography of Butler

285The Mohawk cleaves the center of the plain between the two villages,

and is spanned by a fine covered bridge. Fonda and Caughnawaga (now

Mohawk) lie in close embrace. The former has all the freshness of

infancy, while the latter, with its gray old church, * has a matronly

gravity in its appearance.

It is only about half a mile eastward from its blooming daughter, at the

foot of the hills over which winds the eastern fork of the road from

Johnstown. On a commanding eminence, about a mile north of Fonda, we

came to the house where Colonel John Butler resided,' which is believed

to be the oldest dwelling in that section, and coeval with Caughnawaga

Church. It overlooks the Mohawk Valley on the south, and commands an

extensive prospect of a fine agricultural country in every direction. It

is now owned by a Mr. Wilson, and is often visited by the curious, who

are as frequently attracted by the eminently infamous as by the

eminently good. It is a fair specimen of the middling class of houses of

that period. The posts stand directly upon the stone foundation, without

sleepers, and there are no plaster walls or ceilings in the house, the

sides of the rooms being lined with pine boards. The bricks of the

chimney are the small, imported kind which distinguished many of the

edifices in the old states, that were constructed about a century ago.

The village of Johnstown, which was included in the town of Caughnawaga,

organized in 1798, lies pleasantly in the bosom and along the slope of

an intervale, about four miles north of Fonda. *** I met there a

venerable citizen, John Yost, eighty years of age, who had been a

resident of the vicinity from his birth. He was often dandled on the

knee of Sir William Johnson, and has a clear recollection of the

appearance of the baronet and the circumstances of his death.

His father was an adherent of the Whig cause, and instructed him early

in the principles of the Revolution. He was several times employed by

Colonel Willett as an express to carry dispatches from Fort Plain to

Tripe's Hill and other points in the valley, his extreme youth guarding

him from suspicion. He was still an active August, 1848 man when I saw

him, and his bodily health promised him the honors of a centenarian.

Johnson Hall, the residence of Sir William and Sir John Johnson, **** is

situated upon a

* See page 263.

** John Butler was one of the leading Tories of Tryon county during the

whole war of the Revolution. Before the war he was in close official

connection with Sir William Johnson, and, after his death, with his son

and nephew, Sir John and Guy Johnson. When he fled with the Johnsons to

Canada, his family were left behind, and were subsequently held as

hostages by the Americans, and finally exchanged for the wife and

children of Colonel Samuel Campbell, of Cherry Valley. He was active in

the predatory warfare that so long distressed Tryon county, and

commanded the eleven hundred men who desolated Wyoming in 1778. He was

among those who opposed the progress of Sullivan in the Indian country

in 1779, and accompanied Sir John Johnson in his destructive mareh

through the Schoharie and Mohawk settlements in 1780. After the war he

went to Canada, where he resided until his death, whieh occurred about

the year 1800. His property upon the Mohawk, by an aet of the

Legislature of New York, was confiscated; but he was amply rewarded by

the British government for his infamous services in its behalf. He

succeeded Guy Johnson as Indian agent, with a salary of $2000 per annum,

and was granted a pension, as a military officer, of $1000 more. Like

his son Walter, he was detested for his cruelties by the more honorable

British officers; and, after the massacre at Wyoming, Sir Frederic

Haldimand, then Governor of Canada, sent word to him that he did not

wish to see him. It is but justice to Colonel Butler to say, that he was

far more humane than his son Walter, and that his personal deeds at

Wyoming were not so heinous as the common accounts have made them. These

will be considered when the attack upon that settlement shall receive a

more particular notice.

*** The old jail in the village was standing when I was there, in

August, 1848. It was built in 1762, and was consumed by fire on the 8th

of September, 1849.

**** John Johnson was the son of Sir William Johnson by his first wife.

He was born in 1742, and succeeded his father in his title and estates

in 1774. He was not as popular as his father, being less social and less

acquainted with human nature. His official relations to the parent

government, and his known opposition to the rebellious movements of the

colonies, caused him to be strictly watched, and, as we have noted in

the text, not without just cause. Expelled from his estate, his property

confiscated, his family in exile, he became an uncompromising enemy of

the republicans, and until the close of the war his influence was

exerted against the patriots. Soon after the close of the war Sir John

went to England, and, on returning in 1785, settled in Canada. He was

appointed superintendent and inspector general of Indian affairs in

North America, and for several years he was a member of the legislative

council of Canada. To compensate him for his losses, the British

government made him several grants of lands. He died at the house of his

daughter, Mrs. Bowes, at Montreal, in 1830, aged 88 years. His son, Sir

Adam Gordon Johnson, succeeded him in his title.

Johnson Hall.--Its Staircase and Brant's Hatchet Marks.--Progress of

Western New York.

286gentle eminence, about three fourths of a mile northward of the

court-house in the village, and near the state road to Black River. This

was probably the finest mansion in the province, out of the city of New

York, at the time of its erection, about the year 1760.

The nail, or main building, is of wood, and double clap-boarded in a

manner to represent blocks of stone. Its exterior dimensions are forty

feet wide, sixty feet long, and two stories high. The detached wings,

built for flanking block-houses, are of stone. The walls of these are

very thick, and near the eaves they are pierced for musketry. The

entrance passage, which extends entirely through the house, is fifteen

feet wide, from which rises a broad stair-case, with heavy mahogany

balustrades, to the second story. The rail of this balustrade is scarred

by hatchet blows at regular intervals of about a foot, from the top to

the bottom, and tradition avers that it was done by the hands of Brant

when he fled from the hall with Sir John Johnson, in 1776, to protect

the house from the torch of marauding savages, for he asserted that such

a token would be understood and respected by them.

The rooms in both stories are large and lofty, and the sides are

handsomely wainscoted with pine panels and carved work, all of which is

carefully preserved in its original form by Mr. Eleazer Wells, the

present proprietor. He has been acquainted with the house for fifty

years, and within that time one of the rooms has been neither painted

nor papered. * The

* In that room Mr. Wells was married in 1807, the house then belonging

to his mother-in-law. Mr. Wells related to me a fact which illustrates

the wonderful progress of Western New York in population and wealth

within half a century. About the time of his marriage he went west, with

the intention of purchasing a farm in the Genesee country, always so

celebrated for its fertility. Among other places, he visited the site of

the present large city of Rochester. Then a solitary cabin was there.

The land was offered to him for two dollars an acre, but it seemed too

wet for his purpose, and he refused to buy. "Had I purchased then," said

Mr. Wells, "it might have made me a millionaire, although such a result

is by no means certain, for the original owner of all the land where

Utica now stands was a tenant, and his descendants still are tenants, of

other proprietors of the soil there." The prize within the reach of the

person to whom he alluded was allowed, through lack of prudence and

forecast, to slip through his fingers, and not a rood of all the acres

of Utica is now his own.

Only Baronial Hall in the United Slates.--Sir William Johnson and his

Wives.--The Dutch Girl.--Molly Brant.

287paper hangings upon it have been there that length of time, and are

doubtless the same that were first put upon the wall by the baronet.

Every thing of the kind is well preserved, and the visitor is gratified

by a view, in its original aspect, of the _only baronial hall in the

United States._

Here Sir William lived in all the elegance and comparative power of an

English baron of the Middle Ages. He had many servants and retainers,

"wives and concubines, sons and daughters of different colors." * His

hall was his castle, and around it, beyond the wings, a heavy stone

breast-work, about twelve feet high, was thrown up. Invested with the

power and influence of an Indian agent of his government in its

transactions with the confederated Six Nations, possessed of a fine

person and dignity of manners, and of a certain style of oratory that

pleased the Indians, he acquired an ascendency over the tribes never

before held by a white man. When, in 1760, General Amherst embarked at

Oswego on his expedition to Canada, Sir William brought to him, at that

place, one thousand Indian warriors of the Six Nations, which was the

largest number that had ever been seen in arms at one time in the cause

of England. He made confidants of many of the chiefs, and to them he

* Sir William is said to have been the father of a hundred children,

chiefly by native mothers, who were young squaws, or the wives of

Indians who thought it an honor to have them intimate with the

distinguished king's agent. He availed himself of a custom which Colden

says was then prevalent among the Six Nations. "They carried their

hospitality so far as to allow distinguished strangers," he says, "the

choice of a young squaw from among the prettiest in the neighborhood,

washed clean and dressed in her best apparel, as a companion during his

sojourn with them." Sir William had two wives, although they were not

made so until they had lived long with the baronet. Simms says, on the

authority of well-authenticated tradition, that his first wife was a

young German girl, who, according to the custom of the times, had been

sold to a man named Phillips, living in the Mohawk Valley, to pay her

passage money to the captain of the emigrant ship in which she came to

this country. She was a handsome girl, and attracted considerable

attention. A neighbor of Sir William, who had heard him express a

determination never to marry, asked him why he did not get the pretty

German girl for a housekeeper. He replied, "I will." Not long afterward

the neighbor called at Phillips's, and inquired where the High Dutch

girl was. Phillips replied, "Johnson, that tamned Irishman, came tother

day and offered me five pounds for her, threatening to horsewhip me and

steal her if I would not sell her. I thought five pounds petter than a

flogging, and took it, and he's got the gal." She was the mother of Sir

John Johnson, and of two daughters, who became the wives respectively of

Guy Johnson and Daniel Claus. * When she was upon her death-bed, Sir

William was married to her in order to legitimate her children. After

her death her place was supplied by Molly Brant, sister of the Mohawk

sachem, by whom he had several children. Toward the close of his life,

Sir William married her in order to legitimate her children also, and

her descendants are now some of the most respectable people in Upper

Canada. Sir William's first interview and acquaintance with her, as

related by Mr. Stone (Note, Life of Brant, i., 387), have considerable

romance. She was a very sprightly and beautiful girl, about sixteen,

when he first saw her at a militia muster. One of the field officers,

riding upon a fine horse, came near her, and, "by way of banter, she

asked permission to mount behind. Not supposing she could perform the

exploit, he said she might. At the word, she leaped upon the crupper

with the agility of a gazelle. The horse sprang off at full speed, and,

clinging to the officer, her blanket flying and her dark hair streaming

in the wind, she flew about the parade-ground as swift as an arrow. The

baronet, who was a witness of the spectacle, admiring the spirit of the

young squaw, and becoming enamored of her person, took her home as his

wife." According to Indian customs, this act made her really his wife,

and in all her relations of wife and mother she was very exemplary.

* These two daughters, who were left by their dying mother to the care

of a friend, were educated almost in solitude. That friend was the widow

of an officer who was killed in battle, and, retiring from the world,

devoted her whole time to the care of these children. They were

carefully instructed in religious duties, and in various kinds of

needle-work, but were themselves kept entirely from society. At the age

of sixteen they had never seen a lady, except their mother and her

friend, or a gentleman, except Sir William, who visited their room

daily. Their dress was not conformed to the fashions, but always

consisted of wrappers of finest chintz over green silk petticoats. Their

hair, which was long and beautiful, was tied behind with a simple band

of ribbon. After their marriage they soon acquired the habits of

society, and made excellent wires.

Sir William Johnson's Diploma.--His Amusements and sudden Death.--Flight

of Sir John.--His Invasion of the Valley in 1780.

288was in the habit of giving a diploma, testifying to their good

conduct. One of these is in the possession of the New York Historical

Society, a copy of which, with the vignette, is given in the note. * His

house was the resort of the sachems of the Six Nations for counsel and

for trade, and there the presents sent out by his government were

annually distributed to the Indians. On these occasions he amused

himself and gratified his guests by fêtes and games, many of which were

highly ludicrous. ** Young Indians and squaws were often seen running

foot-races or wrestling for trinkets, and feats of astonishing agility

were frequently performed by the Indians of both sexes.

Sir William's death was sudden, and was by some ascribed to poison,

voluntarily 1774 taken by him, and by others to apoplexy, induced by

over-excitement. His possessions, which, with his offices and titles,

passed into the hands of his son, did not long remain undisturbed, but

were abandoned, as we have seen, in 1776, and were afterward sold to

strangers under an act of attainder and confiscation passed by the

Legislature of New York.

Sir John, as we have already noted, fled to Canada, where he received a

colonel's commission. The sequestration of his immense landed property

inspired him with feelings of implacable revenge, which were manifested

by his terrible visitations to the settlements in Tryon county. One of

these was chiefly for the purpose of recovering the plate and other

valuables belonging to the baronet, which had been buried near Johnson

Hall. The events of this incursion were as follows:

About midnight on Sunday, the 21st of May, 1780, Sir John, with a force

of five hundred Tories and Indians, who had penetrated the country from

Crown Point to the Sacondaga River, appeared at Johnson Hall without

being seen by any but his friends. His forces were divided into two

detachments, and between midnight and dawn he began to devastate the

settlement by burning every building, except those which belonged to

Tories. One division was sent around in an easterly course, so as to

strike the Mohawk at Tripes Hill, *** below Caughnawaga, whence it was

ordered to proceed up the valley, destroy Caughnawaga, and form a

junction with the other division at the mouth of Cayudutta Creek. This

march was performed; many dwellings were burned and several lives were

sacrificed. Sir John, in the mean while, at the head of one division,

proceeded through the village of Johnstown unobserved by the sentinels

at the small picketed fort there, and before daylight was at the Hall,

once his Own, where he secured two prisoners.

On his way to join the other division upon the Cayudutta, he came to the

residence of Sampson Sammons, who was, with his

* By the Honorable Sir William Johnson, Bart., His Majesty's sole Agent

and Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Northern Department of

North America, Colonel of the Six United Nations, their Allies and

Dependants, &c., &c.

* "To------------Whereas, I have received repeated proofs of your

attachment to his Britannic Majesty's Interests and Zeal for his

service, upon sundry occasions, more particularly............I do

therefor give you this public Testimonial thereof, as a proof of his

Majesty's Esteem and Approbation, Declaring you, the said......, to be

a.........of your........., and recommending it to all his Majesty's

Subjects and faithful Indian Allies to Treat and Consider you upon all

occasions agreeable to your character, station, and services......Given

under my hand and seal at Arms, at Johnson Hall, the.........day

of........, 17..

* "By command of Sir W. Johnson."

** Among the amusements invented by Sir William were foot-races, in

which the competitors had meal-bags drawn up over their legs and tied

under their arms; a hog, with its tail greased, would be offered as a

prize to the one that should catch it by that extremity; a half pound of

tea was a prize offered to the one who could make the wryest face; a

bladder of Scotch snuff to the greatest scold of two old women; and

children might be seen exploring pools of muddy water, into which the

baronet had cast several pennies.--Simms, 121.

*** At this place lived Garret Putnam, a very active Whig, and his house

was the first one assailed. Unknown to the invaders, Putnam had rented

his house to two Englishmen named Gort and Platto, stanch Tories. The

assailants broke into the house, scalped the two men, who had not time

to reveal their characters, and it was not until daylight that they

discovered their victims to be their own friends instead of Putnam and

his son, as they had supposed.

Capture of the Sammons Family.--Cruelties and Crimes of the Invaders.--

Johnson's Retreat--Recovery of his Negro and Plate

289whole family, among the most active and intrepid patriots in Tryon

county. Sir John had always respected Mr. Sammons, and still held him in

high estimation, but he was determined to carry him and his family away

prisoners, if possible, and thus lessen the number of his more

influential enemies in the Mohawk Valley. It was not yet light when a

Tory, named Sunderland, with a resolute band, surrounded the house of

Sammons, and the first intimation the family had of danger was the

arrest of Thomas, the younger of three sons, as he stepped out of the

door to observe the weather. * The father and three sons were made

prisoners, but the females of the family were left undisturbed, after

the house was plundered of every thing valuable. The marauders then

marched with their prisoners to the mouth of the Cayudutta, and both

divisions went up the valley, burning, plundering, and murdering. A

venerable old man, named David Fonda, was killed and scalped by an

Indian party attached to the expedition, and in its march of a few miles

nine aged men, four of them upward of eighty years old, were murdered.

Returning to Caughnawaga, the torch was applied, and every building,

except the church, was laid in ashes. From Caughnawaga they proceeded to

Johnstown ** by way of the Sammonses, on whose premises every building

was burned, and the females, bereft of their protectors and helpers,

were left houseless and almost naked. Seven horses that were in the

stables were taken away, and that happy family of the morning were

utterly destitute at evening.

Toward sunset Johnson perceived that the militia of the neighborhood

were gathering, under the direction of Colonel John Harper, and resolved

to decamp. Several Loyalists had joined him, and he succeeded in

obtaining possession of twenty negro slaves whom he had left behind at

the time of his flight, in the spring of 1776. Among these was the

faithful negro who buried his chests of plate. With his prisoners,

slaves, and much booty, he directed his course toward the Sacondaga. The

inhabitants seemed so completely May 22, 1780 taken by surprise, and

were so panic-stricken by the suddenness and fierceness of the invasion,

that he was unmolested in his retreating march, and reached St. John's,

on the Sorel, in safety. The captives were sent to Chambly, twelve miles

distant, and confined in the fortress there. ***

* Thomas Sammons, who was then a lad, lived until within a few years,

and furnished much of the interesting matter concerning this irruption

of Sir John, to the author of the Life of Brant, from whose pages I have

gleaned much of the narrative here given. Mr. Sammons was a

representative in Congress from 1803 to 1807, and again from 1809 to

1813.

** I have before mentioned that the silver plate and other valuable

articles belonging to Johnson were buried by a faithful slave. When the

Hall and other property were taken possession of by the Tryon county

Committee, under the aet of sequestration, the elder of Mr. Sammon's

sons became the lessee, and the purchaser of the slave William, who had

buried the plate. This slave Sir John found at the Hall, and while he

tarried there for several hours on the day in question, the negro,

assisted by four soldiers, disinterred the plate, which filled two

barrels. It was then distributed among forty soldiers, who placed it in

their knapsacks, the quarter-master making a memorandum of the name of

each with the article of plate intrusted to him, and in this way it was

carried safely to Montreal. Johnson Hall, with seven hundred acres of

land, had been sold by the commissioners to James Caldwell, of Albany,

for $30,000, the payment to be made in public securities. To show the

real value of such securities--in other words, the state of public

credit of the colonies about 1779, it may be mentioned that Mr. Caldwell

immediately resold the property for $7000, $23,000 less on paper than he

gave for it, and then made money by the operation. He had bought the

securities for a trifle, and received hard cash from the man who

purchased from him.

*** While halting on the day after leaving Johnstown, the elder Mr.

Sammons requested a personal interview with Sir John, which was granted.

He asked to be released, but the baronet hesitated. The old man then

recurred to former times, when he and Sir John were friends and

neighbors. "See what you have done, Sir John," he said. "You have taken

myself and my sons prisoners, burned my dwelling to ashes, and left the

helpless members of my family with no covering but the heavens above,

and no prospect but desolation around them. Did we treat you in this

manner when you were in the power of the Tryon county Committee? Do you

remember when we were consulted by General Schuyler, and you agreed to

surrender your arms? Do you not remember that you then agreed to remain

neutral, and that upon that condition General Schuyler left you at

liberty on your parole? Those conditions you violated. You went off to

Canada; enrolled yourself in the service of the king; raised a regiment

of the disaffected, who abandoned their country with you; and you have

now returned to wage a cruel war against us, by burning our dwellings

and robbing us of our property. I was your friend in the Committee of

Safety, and exerted myself to save your person from injury. And how am I

requited? Your Indians have murdered and scalped old Mr. Fonda, at the

age of eighty years, a man who, I have heard your father say, was like a

father to him when he settled in Johnstown and Kingsborough. You can not

succeed, Sir John, in such a warfare, and you will never enjoy your

property more!" The appeal had its effect. The baronet made no reply,

but the old gentleman was set at liberty, and a span of his horses was

restored to him. A Tory, named Doxstader (whom we shall soon meet again

at Currytown), was seen upon one of the old man's horses, and refused to

give him up. After the war he returned to the neighborhood, when Mr.

Sammons had him arrested, and he was obliged to pay the full value of

the animal. The two elder sons of Mr. Sammons, Frederic and Jacob, were

taken to Canada. At Chambly they concerted a plan for escape by the

prisoners rising upon the garrison, but the majority of them were too

weak-hearted to attempt it. The brothers, however, succeeded in making

their escape a few days afterward, and the narrative of their separate

adventures, before they reached their homes, forms a wonderful page in

the volume of romance. It may be found in detail in the second volume of

Stone's Life of Brant. Jacob, after a toilsome journey from St. John's

to Pittstown, in Vermont, through the trackless wilderness, reached

Schenectady in safety, a few weeks after his capture, where he found his

wife and children. But Frederic was recaptured, and it was nearly two

years before he returned. His adventures in making his escape from an

island among the St. Lawrence rapids, above Montreal, and his subsequent

travel through the wilderness from the St. Lawrence to the Mohawk, with

a fellow-prisoner, partake of all the stirring character of the most

exciting legendary fiction. Almost naked, and with matted hair, they

entered the streets of Schenectady, a wonder and a terror to the

inhabitants at first, but, when known, they were the objects of profound

regard. A strange but well-attested fact is related in connection with

the return of Frederic. After the destruction of his property upon the

Mohawk, the elder Sammons and his family returned to Marbletown, in

Ulster county, whence they had emigrated. On the morning after his

arrival at Schenectady, Frederic dispatched a letter to his father, by

the hand of an officer on his way to Philadelphia. He left it at the

house of Mr. Levi De Witt, five miles distant from Mr. Sammons's. On the

night when the letter was left there, Jacob dreamed that his brother

Frederic was living, and that a letter, announcing the fact, was at Mr.

De Witt's. The dream was twice repeated, and the next morning he related

it to the family. They had long given Frederic up as lost, and laughed

at Jacob for his belief in the teachings of dreams. Jacob firmly

believed that such a letter was at De Witt's, and thither he repaired

and inquired for it. He was told that no such letter was there, but

urged a more thorough search, when it was found behind a barrel, where

it had accidentally fallen. Jacob requested Mr. De Witt to open the

letter and examine it, while he should recite its contents. It was done,

and the dreamer repeated it word for word! Frederic lived to a good old

age, enjoying the esteem and confidence of his fellow-citizens. He was

chosen an elector of President and Vice-president in 1837.

Pursuit of Johnson.--Incursion of Ross and Butler.--Action of Willett.--

Battle at Johnstown.--Adventures of the Sammonses.

290Governor Clinton was at Kingston, Ulster county, when intelligence of

this invasion reached him. He repaired immediately to Albany, and sent

such forces, composed of militia and volunteers, as he could raise, to

overtake and intercept the invaders. One division, commanded by the

governor in person, pushed forward to Lakes George and Champlain, and at

Ticonderoga was joined by a body of militia from the New Hampshire

Grants. At the same time Colonel Van Schaick, with eight hundred

militia, pursued the enemy by way of Johnstown. But Sir John was far

beyond the reach of pursuers, and too cautious to take a route so well

known as that of the lakes. He kept upon the Indian paths through the

wilderness west of the Adirondack Mountains, and escaped. This was the

last visit made by Johnson to the Mohawk Valley during the war, but his

friends invaded the settlement the following year, and near Johnson Hall

a pretty severe battle took place.

On the 24th of October, 1781, Major Ross and Walter Butler, at the head

of about one thousand troops, consisting of regulars, Indians, and

Tories, approached the settlement so stealthily that they reached Warren

Bush (not far from the place where Sir Peter Warren made his first

settlement, and the place of residence of Sir William Johnson on his

arrival in America) without their approach being suspected. The

settlement was broken into so suddenly that the people had no chance for

escape. Many were killed, and their houses plundered and destroyed. As

soon as Colonel Willett, then stationed at Fort Rensselaer, was informed

of this incursion, he marched with about four hundred men for Fort

Hunter, on the Mohawk. Colonel Rowley, of Massachusetts, with a part of

his force, consisting of Tryon county militia, was sent round to fall

upon the enemy in the rear, while Willett should attack them in front.

The belligerents met a short distance above Johnson Hall, and a battle

immediately ensued. The militia under Willett soon gave way, and fled in

great confusion to the stone church in the village; and the enemy would

have had an easy victory,

Retreat of Rosa and Butler.--Fight on West Canada Creek.--Death of

Walter Butler.--Last Battle near the Mohawk.

291had not Howley emerged from the woods at that moment, and fallen upon

their rear. It was then nearly four o'clock in the afternoon, and the

fight was kept up with bravery on both sides until dark, when the enemy

retreated, or rather fled, in great disorder, to the woods. During the

engagement, and while Rowley was keeping the enemy at bay, Willett

succeeded in rallying the militia, who returned to the fight. The

Americans lost about forty killed and wounded. The enemy had about the

same number killed, and fifty made prisoners.

The enemy continued their retreat westward nearly all the night after

the battle, and early in the morning Willett started in pursuit. He

halted at Stone Arabia, and sent forward a detachment of troops to make

forced marches to Oneida Lake, where, he was informed, the enemy had

left their boats, for the purpose of destroying them. In the mean while

he pressed onward with the main force to the German Flats, where he

learned that the advanced party had returned without accomplishing their

errand. From a scouting party he also learned that the enemy had taken a

northerly course, along the West Canada Creek. With about four hundred

of his choicest men, he started in pursuit, in the face of a driving

snow-storm. He encamped that night in a thick wood upon the Royal Grant,

* and sent out a scouting party, under Jacob Sammons, to search for the

enemy. Sammons discovered their forces a few miles in advance of the

Americans, and, after reconnoitering their camp, communicated the fact

to Willett that they were well armed with bayonets. That officer

deferred his meditated night attack upon them, and continued his pursuit

early in the morning, but the enemy were as quick on foot as he. In the

afternoon he came up with a lagging party of Indians, and a brisk but

short skirmish ensued. Some of the Indians were killed, some taken

prisoners, and others escaped. Willett kept upon the enemy's trail along

the creek, and toward evening came up with the main body at a place

called Jerseyfield, on the northeastern side of Canada Creek. A running

fight ensued; the Indians became terrified, and retreated across the

stream at a ford, where Walter Butler, who was their leader, attempted

to rally them. A brisk fire was kept up across the creek by both parties

for some time, and Butler, who was watching the fight from behind a

tree, was shot in the head by an Oneida, who knew him and took

deliberate aim. His troops thereupon fled in confusion. The Oneida

bounded across the creek, and found his victim not dead, but writhing in

great agony. The Tory cried out, "_Save me! Save me! Give me quarters!"_

while the tomahawk of the warrior glittered over his head. "_Me give you

Sherry Falley quarters!_" shouted the Indian, and buried his hatchet in

the head of his enemy. He took his scalp, and, with the rest of the

Oneidas, continued the pursuit of the flying host. The body of Butler

was left to the beasts and birds, without burial, for charity toward one

so blood-stained had no dwelling-place in the bosoms of his foes. The

place where he fell is still called _Butler's Ford._ The pursuit was

kept up until evening, when Willett, completely successful by entirely

routing and dispersing the enemy, wheeled his victorious little army,

and returned to Fort Dayton in triumph. ** This was the closing scene of

the bloody drama performed in the Valley of the Mohawk during the

Revolution, a tragedy terrible in every aspect; and we, who are dwelling

in the midst of peace and abundance, and so far removed, in point of

time, from the events, that hardly an actor is living to tell us of

scenes that seem almost fabulous, can not properly estimate the degree

of moral and physical courage, long suffering, patient endurance, and

hopeful vigilance which the people of that day exhibited. It was a

terrible ordeal for the patriots. Like the three holy men of Babylon,

they passed through a "fiery furnace heated one seven times more than it

was wont to

* The Royal Grant, it will be remembered, was the tract of land which

Sir William Johnson shrewdly procured from Hendrick, the Mohawk sachem,

by outwitting him in a game of dreaming.--See page 106.

** The sufferings of the retreating army must have been many and acute.

The weather was cold, and in their hasty flight many of them had cast

away their blankets, to make their progress more speedy. The loss of the

Americans in this pursuit was only one man; that of the enemy is not

known. It must have been very great. Colonel Willett, in his dispatch to

Governor Clinton, observed, "The fields of Johnstown the brooks and

rivers, the hills and mountains, the deep and gloomy marshes through

which they had to pass they only could tell; and perhaps the officers

who detached them on the expedition."

Return to Fultonville.--The Sammons House.--Local Historians.--The

departed Heroes.--The Kane House.

292be," yet they came out unscathed--"neither were their coats changed

nor the smell of fire had passed on them." We are yet to visit

Currytown, Sharon Springs, and Cherry Valley, and note some incidents of

the civil war, reserved for record here, and then we shall leave old

Tryon county, with the pleasant anticipations of the "homeward-hound."

We returned to Fultonville, from our excursion to Johnstown, by the

western road, and passed the premises formerly owned by Sampson Sammons,

near the winding Cayadutta. The house, which was built upon the

foundation of the one destroyed by the miscreants under Johnson, has a

venerable appearance; but the trailing vines that cover its porch, and

the air of comfort that surrounds it, hide all indications of the

desolation of former times. We arrived at Fultonville in time to dine,

and there I spent an hour pleasantly and profitably with Jeptha R.

Simms, Esq., the author of a "History of Schoharie County and the Border

Wars of New York," a work of much local and general interest, and a

valuable companion to Campbell's "Annals of Tryon County." It is greatly

to be lamented that men like Campbell and Simms, and Miner, of Wyoming,

who gathered a large proportion of the facts concerning the Revolution

from the lips of those who participated in its trials, have not been

found in every section of our old thirteen states equally industrious

and patriotic. It is now too late, for the men of the Revolution are

mostly in the grave. I have found but few, very few, still alive and

sufficiently vigorous to tell the tales of their experience with

perspicuity; and a hundred times, in the course of my pilgrimage to the

grounds where

Discord raised its trumpet notes

And carnage beat its horrid drum,

have my inquiries for living patriots of that war been answered with

"Five years ago Captain A. was living," or "three years ago Major B.

died;" or "last autumn Mother C. was buried;" all of whom were full of

the unwritten history of the Revolution. But they are gone, and much of

the story of our struggle for independence is buried with them. They are

gone, but not forgotten:

"They need

No statue or inscription to reveal

Their greatness. It is round them; and the joy

With which their children tread the hallow'd ground

That holds their venerated bones, the peace

That smiles on all they fought for, and the wealth

That clothes the land they rescued--these, though mute,

As feeling ever is when deepest--these

Are monuments more lasting than the fanes

Rear'd to the kings and demi-gods of old."

Percival.

I returned to Fort Plain, by rail-road, toward evening, and the next

morning, accompanied by the friend with whom we were sojourning, I

started for Currytown. * We went by the way of Canajoharie, a pleasant

little village on the canal, opposite Palatine, and thence over the

rugged hills southward. A little below Canajoharie we sketched an old

stone house which was erected before the Revolution, and was used soon

afterward by the brothers Kane, then the most extensive traders west of

Albany. An anecdote is related in connection with the Kanes, which

illustrates the proverbial shrewdness of Yankees, and the confiding

nature of the old stock of Mohawk Valley Dutchmen. A peddler (who was,

of course, a Yankee) was arrested for the offense of traveling on the

Sabbath, contrary to law, and taken before a Dutch justice near

Caughnawaga. The peddler pleaded the urgency of his business. At first

the Dutchman was inexorable, but at length, on the payment to him of a

small sum, agreed to furnish the Yankee with a written permit to travel

on. The justice, not being expert with the pen, requested the peddler to

write the "pass." He wrote a draft upon the Kanes for fifty dollars,

which the unsus-

* The name is derived from William Curry, the patentee of the lands in

that settlement.

Dutch Magistrate and Yankee Peddler.--Currytown.--Jacob Dievendorff.--

Indian Method of Scalping.

293pecting Dutchman signed. The draft was presented and duly honored,

and the Yankee went on his way rejoicing. A few days afterward the

justice was called upon to pay the amount of the draft. The thing was a

mystery, and it was a long time before he could comprehend it. All at

once light broke in upon the matter, and the victim exclaimed,

vehemently, in broken English, "Eh, yah! I understands it now. Tish mine

writin', and dat ish de tam Yankee pass!" He paid the money and resigned

his office, feeling that it was safer to deal in corn and butter with

honest neighbors, than in law with Yankee interlopers.

We reached Currytown, a small village nearly four miles south of

Canajoharie, at about noon. The principal object of my visit there was

to see the venerable Jacob Dievendorff, who, with his family, was among

the sufferers when that settle ment was destroyed by Indians and Tories

in July, 1781. Accompanied by his son-in-law (Dr. Snow, of Currytown),

we found the old patriot busily engaged in his barn, threshing grain;

and, al though nearly eighty years of age, he seemed almost as vigorous

and active as most men are at sixty. His sight and hearing are somewhat

defective, but his intellect, as exhibited by his clear remembrance of

the circumstances of his early life, had lost but little of its

strength. He is one of the largest land-holders in Montgomery county,

owning one thousand fertile acres, lying in a single tract where the

scenes of his sufferings in early life occurred. In an orchard, 'a short

distance from his dwelling August, 1848 was still standing, which was

stockaded and used as a fort. It is fast decaying, but the venerable

owner allows time alone to work its destruction, and will not suffer a

board to be taken from it. The occurrences here have already been

recorded, by Campbell and Simms, as related to them long ago by Mr.

Dievendorff and others, and from these details I gather the following

facts, adding such matters of interest as were communicated me by Mr.

Dievendorff himself and his near neighbor, the venerable John Keller.

On the 9th of July, 1781, nearly five hundred Indians, and a few

Loyalists, commanded by a Tory named Doxstader, attacked and destroyed

the settlement of Currytown, murdered several of the inhabitants, and

carried others away prisoners.

The house of Henry Lewis (represented in the engraving) was picketed and

used for a fort. ** The

* I here present a portrait of Mr. Dievendorff which he kindly allowed

me to make while he sat upon a half bushel in his barn. Also, a sketch

of the back of his head, showing its appearance where the scalp was

taken off. The building is a view of the one referred to in the text as

the Currytown fort, now standing in Mr. Dievendorff's orchard. The

method used by the Indians in scalping is probably not generally known.

I was told by Mr. Dievendorff and others familiar with the horrid

practice that the scalping-knife was a weapon not unlike, in appearance,

the bowie-knife of the present day. The victim was usually stunned or

killed by a blow from the tomahawk. Sometimes only a portion of the

scalp (as was the case with Mr. Dievendorff) was taken from the crown

and back part of the head, but more frequently the whole scalp was

removed. With the dexterity of a surgeon, the Indian placed the point of

his knife at the roots of the hair on the forehead, and made a circular

incision around the head. If the hair was short, he would raise a lappet

of the skin, take hold with his teeth, and tear it instantly from the

skull. If long, such as the hair of females, he would twist it around

his hand, and, by a sudden jerk, bare the skull. The scalps were then

tanned with the hair on, and often marked in such a manner that the

owners could tell when and where they were severally obtained, and

whether they belonged to men or women. When Major Rogers, in 1759,

destroyed the chief village of the St. Francis Indians, he found there a

vast quantity of scalps, many of them comically painted in

hieroglyphics. They were all stretched on small hoops.

** Mr. Dievendorff told me that on one occasion the fort was attacked by

a party of Indians. There were several women, but only one man, in the

fort. The savages approached stealthily along a ravine, a little north

of the fort, and were about to make an assault upon the frail

fortification, when they were saluted with a warm fire from it. There

were several muskets in it, which the women loaded as fast as the man

could fire; and so rapid were the discharges, that the Indians,

supposing quite a large garrison to be present, fled to the woods. The

remains of the building are still scarred by many bullet marks.

Attack on Currytown.--The Captives.--Expedition under Captain Gross.--

Battle at New Dorlach, now Sharon Springs.

294settlers, unsuspicious of danger, were generally at work in their

fields when the enemy fell upon them. It was toward noon when they

emerged stealthily from the forest, and with torch and tomahawk

commenced the work of destruction. Among the sufferers were the

Dievendorffs, Kellers, Myerses, Bellingers, Tanners, and Lewises. On the

first alarm, those nearest the fort fled thitherward, and those more

remote sought shelter in the woods. Jacob Dievendorff, the father of the

subject of our sketch, escaped. His son Frederic was overtaken,

tomahawked, and scalped, on his way to the fort, * and Frederic's

brother Jacob, then a lad eleven years old, was made prisoner. A negro

named Jacob, two lads named Bellinger, Mary Miller, a little girl ten or

twelve years old, Jacob Myers and his son, and two others, were

captured. The Indians then plundered and burned all the dwellings but

the fort and one belonging to a Tory, in all about twelve, and either

killed or drove away most of the cattle and horses in the neighborhood.

When the work of destruction was finished, the enemy started off in the

direction of New Dorlach, or Turlock (now Sharon) with their prisoners

and booty.

Colonel Willett was at Fort Plain when Currytown was attacked. On the

previous day he had sent out a scout of thirty or forty men, under

Captain Gross, to patrol the country for the two-fold purpose of

procuring forage and watching the movements of the enemy. They went in

the direction of New Dorlach, and, when near the present Sharon Springs,

discovered a portion of the camp of the enemy in a cedar swamp. **

Intelligence of this fact reached Willett at the moment when a dense

smoke, indicating the firing of a village, was seen from Fort Plain, in

the direction of Currytown. Captain Robert M'Kean, with sixteen levies,

was ordered to that place, with instructions to assemble as many of the

militia on the way as possible. With his usual celerity, that officer

arrived at the settlement in time to assist in extinguishing the flames

of some of the buildings yet unconsumed. Colonel Willett, in the mean

time, was active in collecting the militia. Presuming that the enemy

would occupy the same encampment that night, and being joined during the

day by the forces under M'Kean and Gross, he determined to make an

attack upon them at midnight, while they were asleep. His whole strength

did not exceed one hundred and fifty effective men, while the enemy's

force, as he afterward learned, consisted of more than double that

number. The night was dark and lowering, and the dense forest that

surrounded the swamp encampment of the enemy was penetrated only by a

bridle path. His guide became bewildered, and it was six o'clock in the

morning before he came in sight of the enemy, who, warned of his

approach, had taken a more advantageous position. From this position it

was desirable to draw them, and for that purpose Willett sent forward a

detachment from the main body, which he had stationed in crescent form

on a ridge now seen on the south side of the turnpike, opposite the

swamp, who fired upon the Indians and then retreated. The stratagem

succeeded, for the Indians pursued them, and were met by Willett,

advancing with one hundred men. M'Kean was left with a reserve in the

rear, and fell furiously upon the flank of the enemy. A desperate fight

for a short time ensued, when the Indians broke and fled, but kept up a

fire from behind trees and rocks. Willett and his men, understanding

their desultory warfare, pursued them with bullet and bayonet, until

they relinquished the fight, and fled precipitately down their war-path

toward the Susquehanna, leaving their camp and all their plunder behind.

They left forty dead upon the field. The American loss was five killed,

and nine wounded and missing. The brave M'Kean was

* He was not killed, but lay several hours insensible, when he was

picked up by his uncle, Mr. Keller, who carried him into the fort. He

recovered, and lived several years, when he was killed by the falling of

a tree.

** A part of this swamp may still be seen on the north side of the

western turnpike, about two miles east of the springs.

Death of Captain M'Kean.--The Currytown Prisoners.--Dievendorff.--Sharon

Springs.--Analysis of the Waters

295mortally wounded, and died at Fort Plain a few days after the return

of the expedition to that post. I was informed by Mr. Lipe, at Fort

Plain, that the body of the captain was buried near the block-house, and

that the fort was afterward called Fort M'Kean, in honor of the deceased

soldier.

At the time of the attack, the Indians had placed most of their

prisoners on the horses which they had stolen from Currytown, and each

was well guarded. When they were, about to retreat before Willett,

fearing the recapture of the prisoners, and the consequent loss of

scalps, the savages began to murder and scalp them. Young Dievendorff

(my informant) leaped from his horse, and, running toward the swamp, was

pursued, knocked down by a blow of a tomahawk upon his shoulder,

scalped, and left for dead. Willett did not bury his slain, but a

detachment of militia, under Colonel Veeder, who repaired to the field

after the battle, entombed them, and fortunately discovered and

proceeded to bury the bodies of the prisoners who were murdered and

scalped near the camp. Young Dievendorff, who was stunned and

insensible, was seen struggling among the leaves; and his bloody face

being mistaken for that of an Indian, one of the soldiers leveled his

musket to shoot him. A fellow-soldier, perceiving his mistake, knocked

up his piece and saved the lad's life. He was taken to Fort Plain, and,

being placed under the care of Dr. Faught, a German physician, of Stone

Arabia, was restored to health. It was five years, however, before his

head was perfectly healed; and when I saw him (August, 1848), it had the

tender appearance and feeling of a wound recently healed. He is still

living (1849), in the midst of the settlement of Currytown, which soon

arose from its ashes, and is a living monument of savage cruelty and the

sufferings of the martyrs for American liberty. *

Toward evening we left Currytown for Cherry Valley, by the way of Sharon

Springs. The road lay through a beautiful, though very hilly, country.

From the summits of some of the eminences over which we passed the views

were truly magnificent. Looking down into the Canajoharie Valley from

the top of its eastern slope, it appeared like a vast enameled basin,

having its concavity garnished with pictures of rolling intervales,

broad cultivated fields, green groves, bright streams, villages, and

neat farm-houses in abundance; and its distant rim on its northern verge

seemed beautifully embossed with wooded hills, rising one above another

in profuse outlines far away beyond the Mohawk. We reached the Springs

toward sunset, passing the Pavilion on the way. ** They are in a broad

ravine, and along the margin of a hill; and near them the little village

of Sharon has grown up. ** Our stay was brief---just long enough to have

a lost shoe replaced by another upon our horse, and to visit the famous

fountains--for, having none of the "ills which flesh is heir to" of

sufficient malignity to require the infliction of sulphureted or

chalybeate draughts, we were glad to escape to the hills and vales less

suggestive of Tophet and the Valley of Hinnom. How any _but invalids_,

who find the waters less nauseous than the allopathic doses of the

shops,

* The little girl (Mary Miller) was found scalped, but alive, and was

taken, with the lad Dievendorff, toward Fort Plain. She was very weak

when found, and on taking a draught of cold water, just before reaching

the fort, instantly expired.

** The Pavilion is a very large hotel, situated upon one of the loftiest

summits in the neighborhood, and commanding a magnificent view of the

country. It was erected in 1836 by a New York company, and is filled

with invalids and other visitors during the summer.

*** The Sharon Sulphur Springs have been celebrated for their medical

properties many years, and are said to be equal in efficacy to those in

Virginia. There is a chalybeate spring in the neighborhood. The whole

region abounds in fossils, and is an interesting place for the

geologist.

Arrival at Cherry Valley.--Judge Campbell and his Residence.--His

Captivity.--Movements of Brant

296and, consequently, are happier than at home, can spend a "season"

there, within smelling distance of the gaseous fountains, and call the

sojourn _pleasure_, is a question that can only be solved by Fashion,

the shrewd alchemist in whose alembic common miseries are transmuted

into conventional happiness. The sulphureted hydrogen does not infect

the Pavilion, I believe, and a summer residence there secures the

enjoyment of pure air and delightful drives and walks in the midst of a

lovely hill country.

It was quite dark when we reached Cherry Valley, eight miles west of

Sharon Springs. * This village lies imbosomed within lofty hills, open

only on the southwest, in the direction of the Susquehanna, and as we

approached it along the margin of the mountain on its eastern border,

the lights sparkling below us, like stars reflected from a lake, gave us

the first indication of its presence.

In the course of the evening we called upon the Honorable James S.

Campbell, who, at the time of the destruction of the settlement in 1778,

was a child six years of age. He is the son of Colonel Samuel Campbell,

already mentioned, and father of the Honorable William W. Campbell, of

New York city, the author of the _Annals of Tryon County_, so frequently

cited. With his mother and family, he was carried into captivity. He has

a clear recollection of events in the Indian country while he was a

captive, his arrival and stay at Niagara, his subsequent sojourn in

Canada, and the final reunion of the family after an absence and

separation of two years. ** His residence, a handsome modern structure,

is upon the site of the old family mansion, which was stockaded and used

as a fort at the time of the invasion. The doors and window-shutters

were made bullet-proof, and the two barns that were included within the

ramparts were strengthened.

In a former chapter we have noticed that Brant's first hostile movement,

after his return from Canada and establishment of his head-quarters at

Oghkwaga, was an attempt to cut off the settlement of Cherry Valley, or,

at least, to make captive the members of the active Committee of

Correspondence. It was a sunny morning, toward the close of May, when

Brant and his warriors cautiously moved up to the brow of the lofty hill

on the east side of the town, to reconnoiter the settlement at their

feet. He was astonished and chagrined on seeing a fortification where he

supposed all was weak and defenseless, and greater was his

disappointment when quite a large and well-armed garrison appeared upon

the esplanade in front of Colonel Campbell's house. These soldiers were

not as formidable as the sachem supposed, for they were only half-grown

boys, who, full of the martial spirit of the times, had formed

themselves into companies, and, armed with wooden guns and swords, had

regular drills each day. It was such a display, on the morning in

question, that attracted Brant's attention. His vision being somewhat

obstructed by the trees and

* Cherry Valley derived its name, according to Campbell, from the

following circumstance: "Mr. Dunlop [the venerable pastor whose family

suffered at the time of the massacre in 1778], engaged in writing some

letters, inquired of Mr. Lindesay [the original proprietor of the soil]

where he should date them, who proposed the name of a town in Scotland.

Mr. Dunlop, pointing to the fine wild cherry-trees and to the valley,

replied, 'Let us give our place an appropriate name, and call it Cherry

Valley,' which was readily agreed to."--Annals of Tryon County.

** The children of Mrs. Campbell were all restored to her at Niagara,

except this one. In June, 1780, she was sent to Montreal, and there she

was joined by her missing boy. He had been with a tribe of the Mohawks,

and had forgotten his own language; but he remembered his mother, and

expressed his joy at seeing her, in the Indian language. Honorable

William Campbell, late surveyor general of New York, was her son. She

lived until 1836, being then 93 years of age. She was the last survivor

of the Revolutionary women in the region of the head waters of the

Susquehanna.

*** This pleasant dwelling is upon the northern verge of the town, on

the road leading from Cherry Valley to the Mohawk. The sketch was taken

from the road.

Brant deceived by Boys.--Death of Lieutenant Wormwood.--Shrewdness of

Sitz.--"Brant's Rock."

297shrubs in which he was concealed, he mistook the boys for full-grown

soldiers, and, considering an attack dangerous, moved his party to a

hiding-place at the foot of the Tekaharawa Falls, in a deep ravine north

of the village, near the road leading to the Mohawk. * In that deep,

rocky glen, "where the whole scene was shadowy and almost dark even at

mid-day," his warriors were concealed, while Brant and two or three

followers hid themselves in ambush behind a large rock by the road

side', for the purpose of obtaining such information as might fall in

his way.

On the morning of that day, Lieutenant Wormwood, a promising young

officer of Palatine, had been sent from Fort Plain to Cherry Valley with

the information, for the committee at the latter place, that a military

force might be expected there the next day. His noble bearing and rich

velvet dress attracted a good deal of attention at the village; and

when, toward evening, he started to return, accompanied by Peter Sitz,

the bearer of some dispatches, the people, in admiration, looked after

him until he disappeared beyond the hill. On leaving, he had cast down

his portmanteau, saying, "I shall be back for it in the morning." But he

never returned.

As the two patriots galloped along the margin of the Tekaharawa Glen,

they were hailed, but, instead of answering, they put spurs to their

horses. The warriors in ambush arose and fired a volley upon them. The

lieutenant fell, and Brant, rushing out from his concealment, scalped

him with his own hands. Sitz was captured, and his dispatches fell into

the hands of Brant. Fortunately they were double, and Sitz had the

presence of mind to destroy the genuine and deliver the fictitious to

the sachem. Deceived by these dispatches concerning the strength of

Cherry Valley, Brant withdrew to Cobelskill, and thence to Oghkawaga,

and the settlement 'was saved from destruction at that time.' Its

subsequent fate is recorded in a previous chapter.

Judge Campbell kindly offered to accompany us in the morning to "Brant's

Rock." *** Having engaged to be back at Fort Plain in time the next day

to take the cars for Albany at two o'clock, and the distance from the

"rock" being twelve miles, over a rough and hilly road, an early start

was necessary, for I wished to make a sketch of the village and valley,

as also

* The Tekaharawa is the western branch of the Canajoharie or Bowman's

Creek, which falls into the Mohawk at Canajoharie, opposite Palatine.

** Campbell's Annals.

*** This rock, which is about four feet high, lies in a field on the

left of the road leading from Cherry Valley to the Mohawk, about a mile

and a half north of the residence of Judge Campbell. It is a

fossiliferous mass, composed chiefly of shells. Behind this rock the

body of Lieutenant Wormwood, lifeless and the head scalped, was found by

the villagers, who had heard the firing on the previous evening. Judge

Campbell, who accompanied us to the spot, pointed out the stump of a

large tree by the road side, as the place where Lieutenant Wormwood

fell. The tree was pierced by many bullets, and Judge Campbell had

extracted several of them when a boy.

Morning Scene near Cherry Valley.--Light--Departure for Albany.--

Woodworth's Battle

298of the rock. At early dawn, the light not being sufficient to

perceive the outline of distant objects, I stood upon the high ridge

north of the village which divides the head waters of the eastern branch

of the Susquehanna from the tributaries of the Mohawk. As the pale light

in the east grew ruddy, a magnificent panorama was revealed on every

side; and as the stars faded away, and trees, and fields, and hills, and

the quiet village arose from the gloom, and the sun's first rays burst

over the eastern hills into the valley, lighting it up with sudden

splendor, while the swelling chorus of birds and the hum of insects

broke the stillness; and the perfumes of flowers arose from the dewy

grass like sweet incense, the delighted spirit seemed to hear a voice in

the quivering light, saying,

"From the quicken'd womb of the primal gloom

The sun roll'd black and bare,

Till I wove him a vest, for his Ethiop breast,

Of the threads of my golden hair;

And when the broad tent of the firmament

Arose on its airy spars,

I pencil'd the hue of its matchless blue,

And spangled it round with the stars.

I waken the flowers in their dew-spangled bowers,

The birds in their chambers of green,

And mountains and plain glow with beauty again

As they bask in my matinal sheen.

Oh, if such the glad worth of my presence to earth,

. Though fitful and fleeting the while,

What glories must rest on the home of the blest,

Ever bright with the Deity's smile."

William Pitt Palmer.

On the north the Valley of the Canajoharie stretches away to the Mohawk,

twelve miles distant, whose course was marked by a white line of mist

that skirted the more remote hills; and on the south Cherry Valley

extends down among the mountains toward the Susquehanna proper, and

formed the easy war-path to the settlement at its head, from Oghkwaga

and Unadilla. From the bosom of the ridge whereon I stood spring the

head waters of the eastern branch of the Susquehanna and those of

Canajoharie. I had finished the sketch here given before the sun was

fairly above the tree-tops, and, while the mist yet hovered over the

Tehakawara, we were at Brant's Rock, within the sound of the tiny

cascades. There we parted from Judge Campbell, and hastened on toward

Fort Plain, where we arrived in time to breakfast, and to take the

morning train for Albany. Before leaving, let us take a parting glance

at the Revolutionary history of the Mohawk Valley, for we may not have

another opportunity.

Soon after the irruption of Dockstader, or Doxstader, into the Currytown

and New Dor-lach settlements, a party of Tories and Indians made a

descent upon Palatine, under the conduct of a son of Colonel Jacob

Klock. They were betrayed by one of their number, and fled to the woods

for safety, without accomplishing any mischief. At the German Flats and

in that vicinity several spirited rencounters took place between the

enemy and the patriot militia. One of them was marked by great bravery

on the part of Captain Solomon Woodworth, and a small company of rangers

which he had organized. He marched from Fort Dayton to the Royal Grant

for the purpose of observation. On the way he fell in with an Indian

ambush. Without warning, his little band was surrounded by savages, who

made the forest ring with the war-whoop. One of the most desperate and

bloody engagements of the war ensued. Woodworth and a large number of

his rangers were slain, and the victorious Indians took several of them

prisoners. Only fifteen escaped.

Another affair occurred at a settlement called Shell's Bush, about five

miles north of Herkimer village, which deserves a passing notice. A

wealthy German named John Christian Shell, or Schell, had built a block-

house of his own, two stories high, the upper one projecting so as to

allow the inmates to fire perpendicularly upon the assailants. * One

sultry

* At that time there were no less than twenty forts, so called, between

Schenectady and Fort Schuyler. They were generally strong dwellings

stockaded, and so arranged that fifteen or twenty families might find

protection in each.

Descent of Tories upon "Shell's Bush."--Shell's Block-house.--Furious

Battle.--Capture of M'Donald.--Luther's Hymn.

299afternoon in August, while the people were generally in their fields,

Donald M'Donald, one of the Scotch refugees from Johnstown, with a party

of sixty Indians and Tories, made a descent upon Shell's Bush. The

inhabitants mostly fled to Fort Dayton, but Shell and his family took

refuge in his block-house. He and two of his sons (he had eight in all)

were at work in the field. The two sons were captured, but the father

and his other boys, who were near, reached the block-house in safety. It

was finally besieged, but the assailants were kept at a respectful

distance by the _garrison_. Shell's wife loaded the muskets, while her

husband and sons discharged them with sure aim. M'Donald tried to burn

the blockhouse, but was unsuccessful. He at length procured a crow-bar,

ran up to the door, and attempted to force it. Shell fired upon him, and

so wounded him in the leg that he fell. Instantly the beleaguered

patriot opened the door and pulled the Scotchman within, a prisoner. He

was well supplied with cartridges, and these he was obliged to surrender

to his captors. The battle ceased for a time. Shell knew the enemy would

not attempt to burn his castle while their leader was a prisoner within

it, and, taking advantage of the lull in the battle, he went into the

second story, and composedly sang the favorite hymn of Luther amid the

perils that surrounded him in his controversies with the pope. * But the

respite was short. The enemy, maddened at the loss of several of their

number killed, and their commander a prisoner, rushed up to the block-

house, and five of them thrust the muzzles of their pieces through the

loop-holes. Mrs. Shell seized an ax, and, with well-directed blows,

ruined every musket by bending the barrels. At the same time Shell and

his sons kept up a brisk fire, which drove the enemy off. At twilight he

went to the upper story and called out to his wife, in a loud voice,

informing her that Captain Small was approaching from Fort Dayton with

succor. In a few minutes, with louder voice, he exclaimed, "Captain

Small, march your company round upon this side of the house. Captain

Getman, you had better wheel your men off to the left, and come upon

that side." This was a successful stratagem. There were no troops

approaching, but the enemy, deceived by the trick, fled to the woods.

M'Donald was taken to Fort Dayton the next day, where his leg was

amputated, but the blood flowed so freely that he died in a few hours.

** The two sons of Shell

* The following is a literal translation of the hymn, made for the

author of the Life of Brant by Professor Bokum, of Harvard University.

It is from a German hymn book published in 1741.

A firm fortress is our God, a good defense and weapon;

He helps us free from all our troubles which have now befallen us.

The old evil enemy, he is now seriously going to work;

Great power and much cunning are his cruel equipments,

There is none like him on the earth.

2.

With our own strength nothing can be done, we are very soon lost:

For us the right man is fighting, whom God himself has chosen.

Do you ask, who is he? His name is Jesus Christ,

The Lord Jehovah, and there is no other God;

He must hold the field.

3.

And if the world were full of devils, ready to devour us,

We are by no means much afraid, for finally we must overcome The prince

of this world, however badly he may behave,

He can not injure us, and the reason is, because he is the judge,

A little word can lay him low. '.

4.

That word they shall suffer to remain, and not to be thanked for either;

He is with us in the field, with his spirit and his gifts.

If they take from us body, property, honor, child, and wife,

Let them all be taken away, they have yet no gain from it,

The kingdom of heaven must remain to us.

** M'Donald wore a silver-mounted tomahawk, which Shell took from him.

Its handle exhibited thirty-two scalp notches, the tally of horrid deeds

in imitation of his Indian associates.

Death of Shell and his Son.--Cessation of Hostilities.--Departure from

Fort Plain.--Albany.--Hendrick Hudson.

300 were carried into Canada, and they asserted that nine of the wounded

enemy died on the way. Their loss on the ground was eleven killed and

six wounded, while not one of the defenders of the block-house was

injured. Soon after this event Shell was fired upon by some Indians,

while at work in his field with his boys. He was severely wounded, and

one of his boys was killed. The old man was taken to the fort, where he

died of his wound. *

During this summer the Tories and Indians went down upon Warwasing and

other portions of the frontier settlements of Ulster and Orange

counties. These expeditions will be elsewhere considered. The irruption

of Hoss and Butler into the Johnstown settlement in October, and their

repulse by Colonel Willett, have been related. With that transaction

closed the hostilities in Tryon county for the year, and the surrender

of Cornwallis October 19, 1781 and his whole army at Yorktown, in

Virginia, so dispirited the Loyalists that they made no further

demonstrations, by armed parties, against the settlements. Attempts,

some of them successful, were made to carry off prominent citizens. **

The Indians still hung around the borders of the settlements in small

parties during 1782, but they accomplished little beyond producing

alarms and causing general uneasiness. Peace ensued, the hostile savages

retired to the wilderness, a few of the refugee Tories, tame and

submissive, returned, and the Mohawk Valley soon smiled with the

abundance produced by peaceful industry.

We left Fort Plain toward noon, and reached Albany in time to depart for

New York the same evening. Columns of smoke were yet rising from the

smouldering ruins of a large portion of the business part of the city

lying near the river, south of State Street; and the piers along the

basin, black and bare, exhibited a mournful contrast to the air of busy

activity that enlivened them when we passed through the place a few

weeks before. I have been in Albany many times; let us take a seat upon

the promenade deck of the Isaac Newton, for the evening is pleasant,

and, as we glide down the Hudson, chat a while about the Dutch city and

its associations, and its sister settlement Schenectady, and thus close

our

FIRST TOUR AMONG THE SCENES OF THE REVOLUTION.

The site of Albany was an Indian settlement, chiefly of the Mohawk

tribes, long before Hendrick Hudson sailed up the North River. It was

called _Scagh-negh-ta-da_, a word signifying _the end of the pine woods,

or beyond the pine woods._ Such, and equally appropriate, was also the

name of a settlement on the Mohawk, at the lower end of the valley,

which still retains the appellation, though a little Anglicised in

orthography, being spelled Schenectady. From the account given in Juet's

Journal, published in the third volume of Purchas's Pilgrimages, of

Hudson's voyage up the river, it is supposed that he proceeded in his

vessel (the _Half Moon_) as far as the present site of Albany, and

perhaps as high as Troy. *** But he left no colony there, and the

principal fruit of his voyage, which he carried back to the Old World,

was intelligence of the discovery of a noble river, navigable one

hundred and sixty miles, and passing through the most fertile and

romantic region imaginable. This

* Stone's Life of Brant.

** The most prominent Tories engaged in this business were Bettys and

Waltermeyer. We have noticed in another chapter the attempt of the

latter to abduct General Schuyler. Among the prisoners thus made by

these two miscreants, from Ballston, were Samuel Nash, Joseph Chaird,

Uri Tracy, Samuel Patchin, Epenetus White, John Fulmer, and two brothers

named Bontas. They were all taken to Canada, and, after being roughly

treated, were either exchanged, or became free at the conclusion of the

war.

*** Henry or Hendrick Hudson was a native of England. While seeking a

northwest passage to Japan and China, he explored the coasts of

Greenland and Labrador in 1607-8. After returning to England from a

second voyage, he went to Holland and entered the service of the Dutch

East India Company, who fitted out the _Half Moon_ for him to pursue his

discoveries. It was during this voyage that he sailed up the river which

bears his name. The next year (1610) he was sent out by an association

of gentlemen, and in that voyage discovered the great bay at the north

called Hudson's Bay, where he wintered. In the spring of 1611 he

endeavored to complete his discoveries, but, his provisions failing, he

was obliged to relinquish the attempt and make his way homeward. Going

out of the straits from the bay, he threatened to set one or two of his

mutinous crew on shore. These, joined by others, entered his cabin at

night, pinioned his arms behind him, and with his sons, and seven of the

sick and most infirm on board, he was put into a shallop and set adrift.

He was never heard of afterward.

Early History of Albany.--Fort Orange.--First Stone House.--The Church.-

-The Portrait of Hudson.

301discovery was made early in the autumn of 1609.

As soon as the intelligence reached the Dutch East India Company, they

sent out men to establish trading posts in the country in 1614, and the

place was named, by the Dutch, Beaverwyek, or Beaver town, from the

circumstance that great numbers of beavers were found there. A

fortification, called Fort Orange, was built in 1623. * The town

retained its original name until 1664, when the New Netherlands (as the

country upon the Hudson was called) passed into the hands of the

English.

1610 These traders ascended the river and built a blockhouse on the

north point of Boyd's Island, a little below Albany; and it may be said*

that in 1612 Albany was founded, for in that year the first permanent

trading post was established there. Next to Jamestown, in Virginia, it

was the earliest European settlement within the thirteen original

colonies. A temporary fort was erected by the name of Albany, one of the

titles of James, duke of York, the brother of Charles II., afterward

King James II. of England.

The first permanent settlement that was made at Albany (the traders

resorting thither only in the autumn and winter) was in 1626, and from

that time until 1736 many respectable Dutch families came over and

established themselves there and in the vicinity. Among them occur the

names of Quackenboss, Lansing, Bleeeker, Van Ness, Pruyn, Van Wart,

Wendell, Van Eps, and Van Rensselaer, names familiar to the readers of

our history, and their descendants are numerous among us. The first

_stone_ building, except the fort, was erected at Albany in 1647, on

which occasion "eight ankers" (one hundred and twenty-eight gallons) of

brandy were consumed. *** About this time the little village of

Beaverwyek was stockaded with strong wooden pickets or palisades, the

remains of which were visible until 1812. The government was a military

despotism, and so rigorous were the laws that quite a number of settlers

left it and established themselves upon the present site of Schenectady,

about one hundred years since. A small church was erected in 1655, and

the Dutch East India Company sent a bell and a pulpit for it, about the

time when its first pastor, Rev. Gideon Schaats, sailed for Beaverwyek.

It became too small for the congregation, and in 1715 a new and larger

edifice was erected on its site. This stood about ninety-two years, in

the open area formed by the angle of State, Market, and Court Streets.

Albany had become a considerable town when Kalm visited it in 1749. He

says the people all spoke Dutch. The houses stood with the gable ends

toward the streets, and the water gutters at the eaves, projecting far

over the streets, were a great annoyance to the people. The cattle,

having free range, kept the streets dirty. The people were very social,

1657.

* Eight curious pieces of ordnance were mounted upon the ramparts of

Fort Orange, called by the Dutch, according to Vanderkempt,

stiengestucken, or stone pieces, because they were loaded with stone

instead of iron balls. These cannon were formed of long stout iron bars

laid longitudinally, and bound with iron hoops Their caliber was

immense. The fort does not seem to have been a very strong work, for in

1639 a complaint was made to the Dutch governor that the fort was in a

state of miserable decay, and that the "hogs had destroyed a part of

it."

** This picture is copied from a painting said to be froth life, now in

the possession of the Corporation of the city of New York, and hanging

in the "Governor's Room," in the City Hall. It was in the old Stadt

House, and was in existence in Governor Stuyvesant's time.

*** Letter of the commissary, De la Montagnie, to the Dutch governor of

New Amsterdam (New York).

Kalm's Description of Albany.---Its Incorporation.---Destruction of

Schenectady.---Colonial Convention.--Walter Wilie.

302and the spacious stoops, or porches, were always filled at evening,

in summer, with neighbors mingling in chit-chat. They knew nothing of

stoves; their chimneys were almost as broad as their houses; and the

people made wampum, a kind of shell on strings, used as money, to sell

to Indians and traders. * They were very cleanly in their houses; were

frugal in their diet, and integrity was a prevailing virtue. Their

servants were chiefly negroes. In 1777, according to Dr. Thatcher

(Military Journal, p. 91), Albany contained "three hundred houses,

chiefly in the Gothic style, the gable ends to the streets." He mentions

the "ancient stone church," and also "a decent edifice called City Hall,

which accommodates generally their assembly and courts of justice." It

also had "a spacious hospital," erected during the French war. It was

incorporated a city in 1686, and was made the capital of the state soon

after the Revolution.

Albany was an important place, in a military point of view, from the

close of the seventeenth century until the hostilities, then begun

between the English and French colonies, ceased in 1763. It was the

place where councils with the Indians were held, and whence expeditions

took their departure for the wilderness beyond. It never became a prey

to French conquest, though often threatened. In the depth of the winter

of 1690 a party of two hundred Frenchmen and Canadians, and fifty

Indians, chiefly Caughnawaga Mohawks, sent out February 8, 1691 by

Frontenac, menaced Albany. They fell upon Schenectady at midnight,

massacred and made captive the inhabitants, and laid the town in ashes.

Sixty-three persons were murdered and twenty-seven carried into

captivity. The church and sixty-three houses were burned. A few persons

escaped to Albany, traveling almost twenty miles in the snow, with no

other covering than their night-clothes. Twenty-five of them lost their

limbs in consequence of their being frozen on the way. Schenectady, like

Albany, was stockaded, having two entrance gates. These were forced open

by the enemy, and the first intimation the inhabitants had of danger was

the bursting in of their doors. ** Informed that Albany was strongly

garrisoned, the marauders, thinking it not prudent to attack it, turned

their faces toward Canada with their prisoners and booty. The settlement

suffered some during the French and Indian war, but it was rather too

near the strong post of Albany to invite frequent visits from the enemy.

It is said that Schenectady was the principal seat of the Mohawks before

the confederacy of the five Iroquois nations was formed.

One of the most prominent events that occurred at Albany, which has a

remote connection with our Revolution, was the convention of colonial

delegates held there in 1754. For a long time the necessity for a closer

political union on the part of the English colonies had been felt. They

had a common enemy in the French, who were making encroachments upon

every interior frontier, but the sectional feelings of the several

colonies often prevented that harmony of action in the raising of money

and troops for the general service which proper efficiency required. It

was also evident that the Indians, particularly the Six Nations of New

York, were becoming alienated from the English, by the influence of

French emissaries among them, and a grand council, in which the several

English colonies might be represented, was thought not only expedient,

but highly necessary. Lord Holderness,

* Wampum is made of the thick and blue part of sea clam-shells. The thin

covering of this part being split off, a hole is drilled in it, and the

form is produced and the pieces made smooth by a grindstone. The form is

that of the cylindrical glass beads called bugles. When finished, they

are strung upon small hempen cords about a foot long. In the manufacture

of wampum, from six to ten strings are considered a day's work. A

considerable quantity is manufactured at the present day in Bergen

county, New Jersey.

** Walter Wilie, who was one of a party sent from Albany to Schenectady

as soon as the intelligence reached that place of the destruction of the

town, wrote a ballad, in the style of Chevy Chase, in which the

circumstances are related in detail. He says of his ballad, "The which I

did compose last night in the space of one hour, and am now writing, the

morning of Friday, June 12th, 1690." He closes it with, "And here I end

the long ballad, * The which you just have redde; I wish that it may

stay on earth Long after I am dead."

Proceedings of the Colonial Convention.--Names of the Delegates.--Plan

of Union submitted by Franklin.

303the English Secretary of State, accordingly addressed a circular

letter to all the colonies, proposing a convention, at Albany, of

committees from the several colonial assemblies, the chief design of

which was proclaimed to be the renewal of treaties with the Six Nations.

Seven of the colonies, namely, New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire,

Connecticut, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, responded to the

call, and the convention assembled at Albany, in the old City Hall, on

the 19th of June, 1754. James Delaney was chosen president of the

convention. The chiefs of the Six Nations were in full attendance, their

principal speaker being Hendrick, the sachem afterward killed near Lake

George while in the service of the English. The proceedings were opened

by a speech to the Indians from Delaney; and while the treaty was in

progress, the convention was invited, by the Massachusetts delegates, to

consider whether the union of the colonies, for mutual defense, was not,

under existing circumstances, desirable. The General Court of

Massachusetts had empowered its representatives to enter into articles

of union and confederation. The suggestion was favorably received, and a

committee, consisting of one member from each colony, was appointed. **

Several plans were proposed. Dr. Franklin, whose fertile mind had

conceived the necessity of union, and matured a plan before he went to

Albany, now offered an outline in writing, which was adopted in

committee, and reported to the convention. The subject was debated "hand

in hand," as Franklin observes, "with the Indian business daily," for

twelve consecutive days, and finally the report, substantially as drawn

by him, was adopted, the Connecticut delegates alone dissenting. *** It

was submitted to the Board of Trade, but that body did not approve of it

or recommend it to the king, while the colonial assemblies were

dissatisfied with it. "The assemblies did not adopt it," says Franklin,

"as they all thought there was too much _prerogative_ in it, and in

England it was judged to have too much of the _democratic_." The Board

of Trade had already proposed a plan of their own--a grand assembly of

colonial governors and certain select members of their several councils,

with power to draw on the British treasury, the sums thus drawn to be

reimbursed by taxes imposed on the colonies by the British Parliament.

This did not suit the colonists at all, and Massachusetts specially

instructed her agent in England "to oppose everything that shall have

the remotest tendency to raise a revenue in America for any public uses

or serv-

* The following are the names of the commissioners from the several

states:

New York.--James Delaney, Joseph Murray, William Johnson, John Chambers,

William Smith.

Massachusetts.--Samuel Welles, John Chandler, Thomas Hutchinson, Oliver

Partridge, John Worthington

New Hampshire.--Theodore Atkinson, Richard Wibird, Mesheck Weare, Henry

Sherburne.

Connecticut.--William Pitkin, Roger Wolcott, Elisha Williams.